Once the frame of the sculpture was assembled and glued, it was time to start plastic wrapping the body of the sculpture. The plastic wrap is what turns the laser cut frame into a human form. I started at the bottom of the sculpture, and pulled the plastic wrap around the knee and chest area. As I made my way around the form, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to be able to just wrap it all in one try. I started experimenting with smaller hunks of plastic wrap, cutting and pulling it around the intricate shape of the human form. I tried to get as little folds in the plastic wrap as possible, trying to keep it as transparent as possible. The more I wrapped, the more wrinkles I got, but it also started to take on the light in a different way that was quite beautiful. I decided to embrace the wrinkles.

The higher up on the body I got, the harder it became to wrap the sculpture. Once I got to the arms and the chests piece, the edges just kept getting very awkward and hard to wrap. I wanted to keep the chest plate as clean as possible and first tried to avoid putting plastic wrapping over the chest plate. I realized that it would leave a rough edge if I didn’t go straight over the chest plate though, and that covering the chest plate would give an added level of support to the structure. The plastic wrap does not interfere with reading the words at all.

A happy surprise was that the plastic wrap really secured the sculpture as a whole. It’s much stronger now and functions as a unit. When the light catches it, it turns the whole piece into a prism. I’m very pleased with this first sculpture.