Toilet paper roll “portraits” modeled after the work of French artist Junior Fritz Jacquet. Much like the Stop Motion Animation project from earlier in the semester, this was an assignment I quickly found myself obsessed with. Like that one, I became consumed by the iterative process, starting something new from a point of ignorance, making discoveries, and trying to refine my methods as I went. I really appreciated working with wet cardboard. With a medium like clay, it’s so malleable that if the end product is terrible (and it usually is) I’m completely to blame. It’s my own technical incompetence. A soggy toilet paper roll can be manipulated, but only to a point. It’s difficult by any reasonable person’s metrics. I find that I need that balance between freedom and constraint to quiet the hypercritical voice in my head. If I screw this up, how much can I beat myself up?
I attempted at least 10 of these hideous little bastards, stopping only because I ran out rolls. Some of them ripped, some disintegrated, some of them just didn’t look enough like faces. The ones you see here were the most successful of the bunch. I’ve already started collecting more materials, including larger paper towel rolls, to continue playing with this concept outside of class requirements. If I die before figuring out how to form a convincing nose, my entire life will have been in vain.
(Click to advance images)