Paper: flat, white, mundane. Right? Hold on just a minute, there, partner. Remember the excellent horse sculpture that we featured last week in our fabric post? How great would it be if that sculpture…. moved?
Okay, okay, I know: every sculpture in the Derby moves. But what if you programmed in more movement than just the mileage provided by your bicycle structure? Today, we’re featuring beautiful kinetic sculptures that use paper, to inspire you to use paper in your Derby sculpture for more than just skinning, cladding, or signage.
Paper doesn’t get the credit it deserves. Not only is it often recycled, almost always recyclable, and in many cases biodegradable, it’s also flexible, porous, and can become anything from structure to skin. The narrator of the next video knows how this simple material can be manipulated to create great and interesting objects. Its simplicity and flexibility make it particularly easy to endow with organic qualities through movement.
Think, for example, about how well the built-in movement of a bicycle could create unusual movement of epic proportions if properly harnessed! Take a look at this sculpture, and tell me I’m wrong:
If you’ve looked through the flatfiles in the shop, you know we have reclaimed foamcore, matboard, and drawing paper. But we also have a variety of construction paper tucked away, as well as reams and reams of reclaimed colored copy paper for just $5 a ream! We even carry natural fiber papers and paper building materials!
Even if you don’t want to build an extra-kinetic sculpture, you can reclaim paper in plenty of interesting ways for the Derby. Remember our cardboard tubes? They are a paper product you can get creative with. You can also make tubes of your own, like Sumer Erek did when he created The Newspaper House.
And if there’s anything more interesting and beautiful than quilling, I don’t know what it is. Whether structural or decorative, paper is a tool that is easy to reclaim and manipulate — perfect for your Derby sculpture! When shopping for your project at The Resource Exchange, remember to mention the Derby for your discount!
