bisonbabe98-blog

[bisonbabe98-blog]

Hi Y’all

Ive spent my week researching bison leg positions, charging, at rest, walking, studies of motion and poses, ect… I have chosen to depict my bison in a charging stance, not in motion, both legs will be extended and planted in weight. The sculpture will be 2/3 full body, full size, emerging from wall, so with the legs firmly extended it gives me the option to rest her on the floor and have them carry weight. The process has proceeded smoothly I completed the legs this morning so I only have two small side panels of the neck left! My next steps will be dismantling and packing shell body to be shipped to Bennington. Ive attached some pictures of the legs and a similar pose I'm working with.

XoXo,

Mira

Process after delivery:

Inject foam into body parts to maintain body integrity and mass of object.

Piece together parts and inject body with foam.

Possibly more paper mache to smooth connecting parts.

Begin upholstering with denim.

Chose material for hooves and horns.

[bisonbabe98-blog]

Week 5

Hi Y’all,

This week has been freezing cold temperature at -37. I’ve done some animal tracking since last week, mostly just a coyote in part of my meadow who has been hunting. The frigidness has made things quite slow since last update, I’ve mostly been skiing, baking, sketching and enjoying the Super Bowl. The bison is coming along and is somewhat starting to take a form, I remolded the neck and built the hump more. The pictures may be really hard for y’all to understand but I’ll put em anyway. Not too much going on overall, hope y’all are staying warm!

Xoxo,

Mira

[bisonbabe98-blog]

[bisonbabe98-blog]

Week 4

Hi Y’all,

This week has been pretty darn smooth! I’ve had a ton of baking to do at work, this past weekend I baked 1,000 cupcakes for an event in town, needless to say I haven't been able to eat one for a few days. The bison is coming along, I’ve molded some portions of the neck piece and started to look for some forms I can mold the legs on. Mostly this week I have continued documenting animals I have observed, which is very therapeutic and an excellent exercise for me to appreciate what I’ve seen and try to draw upon my memory on what forms within the animal stood out to me. Lately I find myself inspecting tracks in the snow more often, Montana has had some serious winds this winter so it erases them quickly but my goal this week is to sketch some tacks and trails. This morning on our driveway there was an extremely cute waddle trail left by a skunk who was on a mission, quickly afterward were coyote tracks following the exact movements and curves to a T. A few mornings ago there were two young bull elk who were kicked out of the herd punching through the snow drifts, I noticed one had a young spike antler dangling from his face that was going to drop soon, I’ve found many dropped antlers around but its rare to see one dangling. Anyway I’ve been revisiting the Native American artist John Nieto who I draw huge inspiration from, his use of color is amazing so I've been experimenting with that in my drawings. I’ve attached his works Coyote Portraits and Praying for the Return of the Bison, also in there are my sketches and a pano I took in my backyard. Something I want to work on more is background, I feel like since these images come from memory I haven't figured out where there inhabit onto paper and the blankness bothers me. It’s a beautiful sunny day out so I’m going to go enjoy it.

Till next week!

Xoxo,

Mira

[bisonbabe98-blog]

[bisonbabe98-blog]

Week 3

Hi Y’all,

Wow what a week! Thanks for all of the birthday wishes! Its been an animal packed week, on my birthday alone I had a bald eagle fly right over my head in the morning, the neighborhood herd of 300 elk spend the day nestled on the hill on our property, held a mole that was in danger of being eaten in my hands, witnessed through sound a pack of coyotes kill a yearling doe not 200ft from my house, many different birds of prey and a murder of crows hanging around an upper part of the property feasting on the coyotes leftovers. Every night so far I've been listening to the coyotes yipping and laughing at night, it’s beginning mating season so if I sit and listen I can hear one call from near posting and responding calls be sent from a series of distances each farther away. I don't want to gross y’all with the details of the kill, but when my brother, sisters boyfriend, dogs and I went to check out what was left, it shifted my process for this week. For some reason it drove me to work on my sketchbook to document some of the animal activity I've seen this week. Last night I was in the hot tub at just after sundown when I heard shifting a few feet away, a coyote came jogging down and although I could accurately only see the silhouette my mind seemed to imprint details even though I saw none. The best way I can describe it is when you look at the moon in a crescent phase and if your stare long enough you can see the portion that is dark, and like that I saw facial lines and fur definition in the coyote. Anyway in other news I finished the other side of the shoulder for the bison, I think y’all get the point so I wont add a picture. I have more sketches I have yet to translate to paper but here a few of the sketches that I've done so far. I find myself sketching bison most often because I find their forms somewhat therapeutic and I can slip away while drawing. 

Xoxo, Mira

[bisonbabe98-blog]

Week 2

Hi Y’all!

This week has gone fairly smoothly. I worked on the facial features on the head I cast last week and I cast a portion of the shoulder hump that is just the base shape. I have been mulling over the idea of using actual bone in my piece and have some to the conclusion that for this work I will not be pushing that idea forward. As to why, I think if I were to use bone in any piece in future it would have to be a leading aspect and act as a pivotal part of the work itself either in the showing of bone or the importance of using or manipulating parts of an animal. The land and people that surround me have immense appreciation and respect for animals that scatter across this landscape. By my using bones in a project that has meanings lying in other materials it diminishes the value of the animal bone and I find that disrespectful and ungrateful. My family and many others live off the land we inhabit and have immense appreciation for what it brings so I will not be going forward with the involvement of bone further in this piece. On another note, I’ve been trying to tackle a book I started last term named The Destruction of the Bison its been a struggle for me as its both very depressing and filled with very rich history of the bison in North America and its importance to Native Americans. So I decided to just jump in and start at a random page in the middle, it led me to amazing Native American origin stories of the bison that are breathtaking. I found that most of the stories I've read involve the bison being hidden in some way by a member of the tribe and a heroic figure using trickery to bring the bison to the peoples. I hope to read much more by next week keep y’all posted. Ive attached a few more pictures of the progress ( he shoulder picture doesn’t show its scale but trust me its big) . Tomorrow is my 21st birthday so I plan on having some fun!!!

[bisonbabe98-blog]

P.S.  I also forgot to restate what I am actually doing so ya’ll aren’t lost. I am forming a life size (6.5 feet tall 4 feet wide) bison out of paper mache to then be covered and decorated with denim material in the spring of 2019.  

 My Plans:

Mold the head further and develop some features.

Start molding other parts of the body and develop the pose of the Bison.

Possibly fuse all body parts together and make the form stable for the addition of denim.

[bisonbabe98-blog]

Week 1

Hi Ya’ll!

Happy new year!

My break was amazing and I am so happy being in my Big Sky State. I made a few adjustments to my bison understructure idea. The major big change is I am no longer carving it out of foam as it would be too expensive to buy and mold a solid 6 foot block. So moving forward I’m woking with paper mache, whats great about that is I can take a mold from anything I want and build off of it. The photos I've attached are of a cattle skull that I've used as a building block for creating a basic shape of the bison head. It looks very much like a blob currently but I cant wait to get my hands in there and form it more, these are just the bare bones as they say. I’ve also thrown in some pictures of cakes I made for John Mayer’s New Years Eve party in my hometown of Livingston Montana and a few pictures of my family’s cattle ranch in Absarokee MT I took while I was home in October.

[bisonbabe98-blog]

Reading List

The Destruction of the Bison. By Andrew C. Isenberg

Not Dumb, Not Blonde: Dolly In Conversation. By Dolly Parton and Randy L. Schmidt

Lakota Woman. By Richard Erdoes and Mary Crow Dog

Walk Two Moons. By Sharon Creach

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon. By Steven Rinella

Deliverance Mary Fields, First African American Woman Star Route Mail Carrier in the United States: A Montana History. By Miantae Metcalf McConnell

Buffalo for the Broken Heart Restoring Life To A Black Hills Ranch. By Dan O’Brien

The Frontier Army and the Destruction of the Buffalo: 1865-1883. By David D. Smits

West of Center: Art and the Counterculture Experiment in America, 1965–1977. By Elissa Auther