Advanced Metals and the Book is a year long art class taught by Dave Bazis and Amy Koenigbauer. In this class you create sculptures. It lets you explore your creativity with metal, wood, and many other materials, while building skills that could help you with future jobs. We had two large projects this year. The first project required us to make three small sculptures. One out of wood, one out of metal, and one a combination of both. This project helped us get a feel for the materials we can work with in the class.
Our second project had us work off of a concept. The concept had to relate to time. We spent a class brainstorming concepts, creating a poster of our ideas. Peer review is a large part of the class and we share our ideas along the way.
When making our sculptures, we are encouraged to think about how our materials relate to the concept. What can we do to manipulate the materials? Many of us chose to incorporate movement into our sculpture.
One of those people is Logan Austin. He made the tire sculpture you can see on the side of this article. He said, “Making my sculpture spin shows movement, as well as giving the viewer a 360 view of the sculpture.”
People thought of other creative ways to show time. Some used rust; this shows how metal changes over time. You can see this in Steve Watson’s project, the rusted gear. People are using everything from wood and metal to engines and tires.
Building sculptures from metal may be among the most difficult forms of physical art. It isn’t soft and malleable like clay and doesn’t flow like paint. In this class, it’s wood and steel. It’s hard and heavy. There are ways to make it easier, constructing a jig to hold your metal while you weld it in place is very helpful. The best way to make the process easier is to plan your project out step by step.
These sculptures are not just metal. People are using everything from wood and fabric to tires and engines. Although some of our time concepts are very similar, the sculptures are all unique. Most of the sculptures can be seen in this article but they can also be seen around the school– a number of them are in the glass display case next to the senior lounge.
Hey Dave and Amy, so great to see you two still collaborating after all these years! Hope all is well, all the best to you!
Andy French
Amy K speaks the truth, this class rocks! Please, take Art Plus Advanced Metals in 2016-17! No art or advanced metals experience needed, Amy and I will show you the way! Just come prepared to create!
Next year this class will be called Art Plus Advanced Metals. Take the class! It rocks!