Growing a Sculpture.

Umbilicus beginning to grow the sculpture.

The sculptures that I intend to 'grow' inside these wombs are created via very traditional sculpting materials and techniques. Ostensibly, they will be plaster sculptures and this form of work needs an armature to support it. Unusually in this case the armature will be made from sisal twine which is  hardened with size and gesso, just like a canvas for a painting.   However,  to start with the sisal is of course just a flexible piece of fibre, this where the womb comes in.  

In the same way that canvas is tensioned across a wooden stretcher to create a 2D plane, the twine here is interwoven tightly throughout the structure of the womb as the beginnings of a 3D form. I call these fibres 'umbilicus'.