Vagabond Queen: pushing through any sense of preciousness

I am really too tired to be anything other than tired, but I'm done. I am Done With Art. I spent somewhere between 30 and 40 hours on this project. I understand a final project instead of a final exam, but I have never spent 40 hours studying for a final. And it's the time this class has taken away from my other classes and my life that I am most resentful of.

Anyway, before I get to the pictures, I thought I'd record the assignment for posterity.

30 drawings and collages of "The Object"

"While the first 17 explorations will begin as collaborative studies, (everyone in class drew everyone else's object for 2 minutes in various media on various paper - that was rather fun) you will push through any sense of preciousness to create bold and dynamic, multi-media explorations, each of which feels considered and engaged. A good number of these should be sustained studies, while the shorter explorations should be equally interesting in their simplicity. You may work during class while you build your sculpture. (Because building the sculpture wouldn't take enough of anyone's time and attention.)

Of these 30 "drawings". . . Create a minimum of two mixed process collages of the Object. On half sheets of double weight paper, use rice paper, brown paper, newspaper, gel, paint, ink, drawings and anything else to arrive at least two collages that communicate the following expressions:

1) excitement, aggressive, virile

2)repose, subtlety, simplicity, peacefulness"

Because, you know, just making a sculpture wouldn't be enough. Right?

What exactly does "pushing through any sense of preciousness" mean?

I'm not going to show you the first iteration of my sculpture. I worked on it all of last Sunday and it didn't work out at all, so I started over again from scratch. Oh, my object was a feather. A quite plain black and grey feather, a bit curvy, with smooth quills at the top and then breaking into a chaos of down for about half of it. Initially, I bought black and silver wire. The black wire was so awful. It covered my hands and everything in black, it smelled metallic, and in general was purgatory to work with. Then I covered it in paper mache, but that made it too heavy and it lost any grace and the paper feathers I was making just flopped.

So my final version is just silver wire and wool.

It is very hard to take a picture of it. I don't think it really looks like a feather. Though I am pleased with how I solved the down problem. To my sister - it might look pretty hung from a tree in the snow outside, at least for a little while.

Then my 30 drawings - all considered and engaged (wink, wink)