The mission proposed to the sculpture students was straightforward: go to the "As Is" Thrift shop on Military and Kenmore, find any cheap items you could use, construct them into a piece of art, and install for a show two days later.
The undergraduate and graduate sculpture students accepted their mission and accomplished it with expertise and without problem.
This being only the second week of school, the students had to think fast and create faster - the students only had one day at the thrift shop and one day to work - in order to install their projects by Thursday of this week.
The brightest corner of the exhibit was graduate sculpture student Ivan Jurakic's piece, "Travel Advisory in Effect." Jurakic's piece was two bright-orange suitcases filled with various orange paraphernalia, ranging from headphones and videocassettes to slippers and box-cutters.
Jurakic said the inspiration for the piece came over a year ago when he would have to cross the border from Canada during the numerous orange alerts enacted in the US. He then began collecting items.
"I've been collecting it for actually over a year," he said.
It might seem like he jumped outside the parameters of the project, but every object included in his piece was found or given to him. The suitcases found at the thrift shop were a perfect addition.
Jurakic described how his project commented on the paranoia surrounding those orange alerts. "I found the two orange suitcases and it just locked in so well with the whole idea of crossing borders and travel advisories, and so I just filled it with a selection of orange stuff that you might take on some sort of bizarro vacation."
An interesting aspect of the exhibit was that no pedestals could be used. Every project had to be "coming off the walls, the ceiling, spilling onto the floor" as the program described.
Albert Chao, a junior sculpture major, utilized this facet perfectly, as his "Electrolux" piece climbed up the wall of the basement gallery. Chao found a classic Electrolux vacuum cleaner and attachments at the thrift shop for fewer than two dollars.
The base of the vacuum was positioned at the base of the wall and each attachment piece seemed to grow out of the wall above it, each a little higher up, creating a virtual vacuum ladder.
Chao said the piece felt ironic to him because they were buying back junk and trash from the thrift shop. He decided to display a device solely designed to pick up garbage and debris.
Graduate sculpture student, Dietmar Krumery, created another wall spilling. Krumery's piece was entitled "Generosity", and it was a conglomeration of an old severed tail pipe, shredded corkboard, and plum-bob.
"What I was thinking about was just what comes out and what goes down," he explained. "I have a preoccupation with gravity so that's why I have a lot of plum-bobs around and I managed to find one there. In the parking lot I found a busted up chrome tail pipe and I thought that was just as applicable."
Altogether it was a crazy, unique, and interesting combination of old high heels, puzzle pieces, Encyclopedia Americanas, chopped ice skates, bedsprings, lampshades, and food processor blades.
The awesome creativity of the Sculpture Department can be seen "Down There" in the basement of the Center for the Arts, in room B45, through Feb. 5.
