Subtractive Project

I did the Michelangelo Project. Using a Pear Knife, I did my best using the subtractive process to turn a bar of soap into a smaller rendition of the same knife. As I was cutting large chunks off the bar of soap to get down to the rough size I needed, I realized how hard it would be to do the same with brittle stone. Also, using the subtractive process, there is no room for messing up since you can’t put back what you took away. In my case the only loss for messing up could be a precious 30 minutes of my life and another $0.39 for soap but in the case of Michelangelo or other artists of this type, I imagine those life size pieces of stone were not cheap along with the time and effort put in. Cracking the nose off of “David” would have surely put me into a deep depression. To me this was an entirely different way of thinking. We normally draw and play with play-do in an “adding” process. Here, I was constantly having to reevaluated the intended shape before every cut. It was much harder to do than I had anticipated. I can’t imagine having to do it under time pressure like Ice Sculptors do. In a ridiculous way, I decided to call my piece “Suicide” since it appears that the soap has carved itself!