Platonic Solids

The proposed 2012 Artist-in-Residence clay-based project at East Chapel Hill High School, Platonic Solids, consists of three parts.  First, it provides a framework for students and faculty at East Chapel Hill High School to create and install a public outdoor environmental sculpture that attracts and directs people toward the main entry to the campus.  Second, by slowing down rain water runoff from the adjacent grassy slope and allowing that water to infiltrate into the soil, the installation acts as a demonstration model that stimulates discussions among the school community about the value of environmental sculpture and landscape architecture in providing aesthetic engineering solutions to stormwater management problems.  Third and most important to the clay-based focus of the residency, the program includes a tile-making workshop that provides students with an opportunity to design and create hand-made tiles and small ceramic 3D forms.  Along with learning to fabricate low structures with clay bricks, the students will participate in the installation of those tiles and forms within the environmental sculpture framework.

The concept for creating this environmental sculpture and the clay-based workshop is based upon Euclidian geometry and the five universal elements of fire, air, earth, water, and aether (cosmic universe).  Each element is associated with the five regular three-dimensional polygons (tetrahedron, octahedron, cube, icosahedron and dodecahedron).  Platonic Solids is a series of five sculptural forms each 18 by 30 feet and consisting of curved low brick walls and circular concave bowls that meet the objective of stormwater infiltration.  The students would design tiles and layout patterns associated with each polygon and install them within the associated large and small bowls.  The smaller concave form would provide an opportunity to create and install sound sculptures (wind chimes) using bamboo and clay-based replicas of the associate platonic solid.  In addition, students would be assisted in developing short poetic phrases (based upon a rap music model) to accompany the sound instruments and create the signage for each of the five element spaces.  Students will be encouraged to create a performance piece as part of a school-wide community celebration at the completion of the art project.

The clay-based workshop sessions would include: intro to tile making, tools and safety, cookie cutter fabrication, slab making, 3-D sculpting, surface decoration and lettering, waxing and glazing techniques, bisque and glaze firing, and mosaic installation.  The environmental-sculpture-based workshop sessions included: intro to environmental art and ecological design, grading and drainage, the participatory design process with workshop, pattern making and tiling exercise, tile making, installation layout, construction tools, materials and methods, concrete footings and forms, wall making (brick and block installation), mosaics (installation), sound sculpture fabrication, signage, and performance art.

Understanding that the residency was only one semester long and the budget would only cover the costs for creating one of the sculptural sections (such as Fire), the project was to be developed in five stages (five single-semester clay courses) with additional funds and in-kind donations being raised.