Cornell University /  FAll 2024 / ART 1020 //  ROBERTO BERTOIA // ‘ESCULTURA’

As part of the introductory sculpture class instructed by Professor Roberto Bertoia, students were tasked with a final project of making a painted plywood sculpture exclusively from analog means entirely from scratch. This process started on trace paper with over a hundred iterations drawn progressively to find innovative shapes that breathed originality into the project. The shapes in the sketches were then brought up from two dimensions into three dimensions, as a series of twelve sketch models made out of paper and foam core were ratified with t-pins holding them together in order to examine light, shadow, joinery techniques, and the different viewpoints of the eventual model. After a rigorous process of examining the successful aspects of each sketch model, one final scaled-down model was designed in foam core, placing emphasis on the thickness of the plywood being used, and the seams that would join each shape together to create an aesthetic composition. Once students received approval from the instructor, the final scaled-down model was thoroughly documented, disassembled, traced over a gridded paper, scaled up four times, and then cut out from the scaled-up paper to be traced on a plywood sheet. The plywood sheet was then cut using shop facilities and thoroughly sanded to introduce the joints that would put it together. Once the full-scale model stood, the joints were drilled down; the model was covered in a coat of shellac and covered in multiple layers of paint to create a compelling sculpture with multiple exciting viewpoints.