Cassandra Aguilera
Exhibition Information
- Artist: Cassandra Aguilera
- Exhibition: Metal and Jewelry
- Media: Copper, Brass, Installation
- Gallery: LBSU School of Art, Gatov Gallery West
About the Artist
Cassandra Aguilera, goes by Cass, is an undergraduate student at Long Beach State, currently in her last year. She is enrolled in the CSULB School of Arts, in the Studio Art program. She has an emphasis in metal work and prefers to us metal in her work. In her submission, she was tasked to make a metal bowl in one of her classes. She chose to use copper to create her bowl, along with the additional glasses used to add color to the piece.
Formal Analysis
Aguilera’s art piece was a bowl made out of one sheet of copper. It was curved to show that it was a bowl, but not to the point where it’s only purpose was a bowl. She included holes and string intertwined in her piece to add elements. It was smooth throughout the piece, with popping with blue and green colors. In order to achieve this this shape, Aguilera took the sheet of metal, heat it up, and dunked it in cold water so that she can mold it into the shape she wanted. To get the colors, she got the bowl she made and layered a thin powdery glass where she laid on the bowl and placed it in the furnace, where the glass melted. To get the burnt parts, she just let the furnace do it naturally. When I asked why she did this, she simply said it was asked of her for her assignment.
Content Analysis
When I asked what motivated her to make this piece, Agiulera simply just answered that it was for her metal class. The assignment she was given was to take a sheet of metal and turn it into a bowl. Whatever other elements she added, her professors would support. She just wanted to create something unique. She had no story to tell about the bowl, but wanted to show it’s uniqueness with the twine, holes, and colors.
My Experience
I definitely learned more about art and the art program we offer here at CSULB. When talking to Aguilera, I learned more about her interest and her take on art. She wants to emphasize in metal pursue her career in studio art. The piece she made amazed me because she told my it only took 25 hours to create. Knowing that she can make this wonderful art in a short amount of time impressed me. When I saw it, I had many questions on how she achieved the looks, but she answered with simple answers to achieve the astonishing look. I was overall impressed, and I did not think that this art was easily created. Her reasoning behind it made me realized that not all art has a meaning. Her art was made because it was an assignment and her approach to for her to have fun with her work. I was also impressed with her techniques to achieve the look. The chemical processes to achieve the color and shape of the piece impressed me because I was shocked that science was included in art. When I think about art, I do not think about science. Aguilera opened up my mind to the thoughts of mixing art and science together. This interested me because I love science, and knowing that science can appear somewhere that I didn’t think related to science, I was impressed.
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