Experimentation – how to destroy

At the moment, I don’t want to focus too much on creating a fashion orientated piece but explain and work on the concept of ephemeral instead. To know what is best for my final piece, I began experimenting with types of melting and displaying I can achieve

Dripping from the air

To achieve the uncontrolled effect of painting- similar to encaustic art- I first played with wax dripping from the air… verdict- probably failure as the fire kept lighting out due to the nature of flame. Below are the results of my experiment.

I am really intrigued as to what results I would get if candle was all dripped out, but as the smoke and flame from the wick creates a burning effect on the candle, black soot remains in the ‘painting’ which I think defaces the ‘beauty’ aspect I am trying to achieve.

The initial drips were really simple yet beautiful- but as time went by,
the flame turned wax into soot- then resulted in candle being put out
after all 

When flame was lighting/ melting the wax, it created a really impressive pattern- almost like a repelent chemical reaction - similar to Helen Storey's molecule experiements

I later turned candle back right round again- tilt it slightly and watched the wax drip from the side..... very tendious process !!!
The outcome of this is the image above... what do you think?

Melting with wick

 

Next I tried melting normal candles on a flat surface and documented it in a film .

The process takes a while to burn out but I think it really captures ‘life’ from the movement of the wax. The aftermath is also very calming and quiet compared to the dripping experiment. I think this style of display will represent better in my ephemeral piece- showing hints of destruction in a quiet yet damaging way

 

From these 2 styles of ‘melting’, I think the ‘wick’ melting works better in creating the uncontrollable and natural effect of destruction. Now need to plan what to melt.