done done and DONE

My review lasted 15 minutes (it's supposed to be 1 hour) because all of my reviewers said "This is amazing. I have nothing else to say" AND I won the Helen Blaire Crosbie award aka $1000 AND I can now be called a college graduate.

American Bison/Prairie House, 76"x39"x130", red oak, cast iron, handmade felt, 2011.

actual bison in progress

SICK CUSTOM A-FRAME

I kept the bison undercover in the woodshop for the entirety of its construction.  This is a shot of it's shoddy neck and head construction that wouldn't be visible. 

Each student is allowed 6 cubic feet in the senior show.  The bison turned out to be 3.5' x11' and one of the gallery people thought it was too big.  It did get in the show and my convincing footprint/space holder probably explains why........

Yeahhhh huge gallery mess!  I got the bison in there at around 5pm and finished assembling it by 8 am the next day and only because two of my friends stayed up the entire night helping me apply the "finish" (feed n wax and dirty metal shop rag) and putting on the felt.  I used old memory foam to bulk out and shape the head. Half of it had the finish on it at this point.

one of the fourteen bison cross section drawings

Evidence that art students still sometimes(very rarely) use skills that plain ol' regular college students use.  This is the tallest/widest/most complex cross section drawing out of the whole bison and also bears the most weight.  All the measurements of the drawing were multiplied by 5.3.  This drawing is about 15" tall so this cross section is actually about 6'5".