This assignment is about slip casting multiple objects. We were explained how the process works and needed to bring in some items which we felt might be suitable and interesting. I grabbed a few items which i thought might be fun to slip cast. These are the original selection.
I rather liked the idea of casting the old audio cassette. I grew up with vinyl, in 1970 I had a reel to reel tape recorder and in the mis 1970s cassettes became all the rage. It was amazing. You could record them yourself from the originals really simply and create tapes of either full albums or – make your own mix tape!! WOW. I managed to play the cassette that I had grabbed from my desk drawer and found out it was a recording of my mum sitting at her kitchen table on 31 December 1983 on the way to my wedding. She insisted on catching the bus and arrived late only to be turned away from the registry office as they had closed the doors….. So I needed to find some different material. Too Good to be Threw came up with the answer. For the princely sum of $0.75c each I was able to obtain 4 gems.
I’m always glad to get a chance to share this photo of my mum
and here are the 4 cassettes. You start by creating a mould from clay, and because they are so thin rather than making a two part mould I had to make a single part mould.
You then make a box about an inch deeper than the objects you are planning to cast, into which the plaster will be poured
Then you pour the slip into the moulds, wait about 15 minutes and peel them out while they are still plastic
I’m not sure where I’m going to go with the castings yet……
Thinking back to my time when cassette were the primary sources of music collections as well as vinyl, I recall an experience I had when I travelled up to the studios of a radio station in London in 1980 to hear an interview with Malcolm McLaren, one of the original punks, and manager of the Sex Pistols. At that time he was involved in another band – Bow Wow Wow and they had just released their debut album “Your Cassette Pet”. The songs were released on cassette only, and as I was a friend of the girl who interviewed Malcolm, I was given a copy of the cassette. It was yellow with red elements on the case, which was the inspiration for what to do with my objects. You can listen to one of the tracks via the link below.
https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=CmWG1D0sOXc
In got some retro pastel paint and have applied it to the high fired objects I already have – but the other techniques are really interesting too, so I have made some more copies that are being bisque fired and I can then muck around with some glazes and underglazes and raku firing next week (12 November).
Link to PPT and PowerPoint above