Finished Product

The Process

There were four main parts to this project: hand sawing copper, moldmaking, lost wax casting and the assembly.

I started with a template of the outline of Africa and pasted it onto an 18 gauge sheet of copper. I then used a hand saw to cut out the outline. I then filed the edges, drilled the "diamond mine" holes, sanded and used heat patina to mimic the typographic map of Africa.

Then I started the figurines. My first attempt was hand carving the figurines, which failed due to the small sie and fine detail I wanted to achieve. So, I went on a hunt for small figurines mocking the RUF soildiers of the mines and skeletons to represent the lives lost in the conlict. I finally ordered charms off of e-bay with no luck finding anything of the small stature I wanted. I then tried making two-sided molds of the two figurines which proved to be a long, expensive and failing process. First I tried algenate, which was no reusable. Then I tried polytek 74-20 which did not set properly after trying several ratios of the formulas. I even tried hot glue which actually worked, until I poured in the hot wax which melted the details of the figurines. Finally, I tried "bondo" auto body filler, typically made for patching cars. The mold cured within five minutes, retained detail, withstood the heat of the wax and released tho wax easily with some cooking spray.

After my molds were made, I then injected wax into them using the wax injector in our studio. I made over 40 models for a safetly net, knowing the models are fragile and would likey break during the spruing and investing process. I then touched up the good models and removed limbs on some of the skeletons (to represent the amputations affiliated with conflict diamonds), sprued them and created several "trees" to be invested.

The casting proved to be sucessful, with the exception of two small figurines "lost" in the process.

Research and Inspiration

The first thing I wanted to investigate was the geography of Africa, since this will be the main struction of the mobile. The map below shows all of the main diamond mines in Africa. This map becomes the delicate balance of my mobile. I wanted my figures to hang below Africa, in the sense that tehy are buried beneath this curse and weighing down the natural beauty the continent holds. Each figure will be accompanied by diamonds as if carrying a burden. The areas where the figures hang from are holes in the main piece placed stratigically where the diamond mines are. The empty holes represent the wasted land and material that these mines leave behind (they also allow light to filter through the mobile to shine on the figures. This painting (anonomous) was an aethtic inpiration for me throughout the process of creating the main structure.

These figures (approx 1/2" tall) where also an inspiration when creating the figures on my mobile that hang beneathe Africa.

Other sites I visted while doing research were:

www.blooddiamond.org

www.historychannel.com

www.cryfreetown.org

www.nationalgeographic.com

various youtube clips on conflict diamonds

Introduction to Project

For my metalsmith class, we were assigned a project based on our personal response to the subject of blood diamonds/conflict stones. The format was left upto us, with the exception of using the lost wax casting process and related processes as demonstrated in our course. In class, we watch Blood Diamonds, a documentary produced by The History Channel in 2006.

I have also had the opportunity to gain first-hand knowledge about conflict diamonds when I traveled to southern Africa in 2007. When I approached this project, I knew I didn't want to do something grusome that related to the effects of conflict diamonds. I came up with two main ideas of contrasting ideas. The first was focusing on what people do with their diamonds, once they realize they are conflicted (many people do not know whether their diamonds are certified at purchase). As I continued to think about the project, I started thinking of the emotions it brought up for me. Keywords: children, hanging over my head, disturbing, beauty of Africa and imbalence. That's where the idea of a mobile came into play. When I think of mobile, I think of something to go over a baby's head on their crib. A mobile rocks, swings and balances itself all very delicatly...something to portray physically, what I was thinking emotionally.