Objects in Resin - Allen Schill - Still Life Photography

These are some of the objects I've made since 2022 in resin. The resin is a transparent material mixed from two liquid components chemically akin to epoxy glue, the second being a hardener. Once mixed, one has an hour or two to work before the resin starts to set. It goes from syrupy at first to a consistency like thick honey when it begins to set. Coloring may be added at the beginning, as I've done with a few of these.

Since most of them are basically transparent, I've photographed them a few different ways to try to suggest how they look in different conditions. Some are shown illuminated from behind, whether on a light box (with the light backgrounds) or in a sunlit window, with a dark background. Since they have a certain thickness - a centimeter or so - I've tried to show that.

Aesthetically they range a bit here and a bit there. The first five, with the tiny doll figures and the blue bases, illustrate a development. The white doves I've used in still-life photographs in the past (see Doves on Racquet). The piece with two baby dolls and a red duck in the bath represents my brother and me when we were babies. I happened to have several more baby dolls, and used them in the last two pieces with six babies apiece. This are dedicated to Fred Rogers and François Clemmons of the Mister Rogers TV program for what they did to make a calm, sane, and beautiful statement about the integration of public swimming pools in the late 1960s. Sharing a tiny kiddie bath on the lawn one hot summer day to bathe and refresh their feet, they symbolized black and white sharing a swimming pool. I am pleased to say that these pieces can also be seen in the Fan Art section of the Everything Mr Rogers website.

Following those are three pieces incorporating the tiny plastic letters intended mainly for name bracelets for kids. One shows a phrase in a spiral form, borrowed from a sequence Marcel Duchamp's short film "Anémic Cinéma" (itself a palindrome), "Esquivons les ecchymoses des Esqimaux aux mots esquis". This means "We dodge the bruises of the Eskimos with exquisite words". (The last phrase, "en Esquimais, that is, "in Eskimo", is my invention, carrying Duchamp's elaborate wordplay a little further.) In Duchamp's film, the phrase itself is presented in a rotating spiral, along with several other remarkable word inventions of his.

The second piece, with a moth embedded in the resin, uses a palindrome in Latin from Virgil, "In girum imus nocte, ecce, et consumimur igni". This sums up the life cycle of the moth: "We go around at night and are consumed by fire."

The last of the three is the famous Arepo Square, a palindromic acrostic of Latin words which dates from the first century B.C. Its author is unknown and its meaning is disputed, but literally may be something like "The sower Arepo guides the wheels with skill".

(A historical aside: the Greek Sotades the Obscene, of the 3rd century B.C., is credited with the invention of the palindrome. He wrote satirical poetry, for which he eventually paid with his life: he poked fun at Ptolemy II for marrying his sister, was jailed, escaped, then caught and thrown into the sea in a leaden chest.)

The next is a miniature plastic egg carton, perhaps 8 cm long, with plastic "gems" resined in place of eggs. As in the traditions of Surrealism and Dada, it works by violating our expectations, like Meret Oppenheim's fur-coated cup and saucer.

Next are three pieces using tiny plastic jet planes salvaged from the model of an aircraft carrier I made when I was a kid. All three have to do with the madness of war. The first is a rectangular piece in transparent resin. For the others, round or square, I colored the resin blood red to suggest the carnage of killing. The name for the group, The Sharks and the Jets, is borrowed from Leonard Bernstein's great musical "West Side Story", a resetting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet among the youth gangs of the tough, poor neighborhood of West Side New York in the 1950s. Instead of the Montagues and the Capulets, we have the Sharks and the Jets, gangs of Puerto Rican and Italian kids, set against one another.

The rest suggest my parallel interests in pattern and randomness - which have been important to my work for many, many years. The materials sed here include plastic beads of various kinds, dessicant crystals, and pastel-colored sugar candies. Some arrangements are hexagonal - a geometric shape close to a circle - and others do not conform to any pattern. The array of leaves of the red maple is of a calligraphic inspiration, quite like many of my photographic still-life photographs and other works.

The Rainbow Flag is my pluralistic, idealistic, multicultural take on the symbol of the USA.

The following use a variety of materials: tiny opalescent hexagons, dessicant beads, multicolored round sugar candies, sequins, irregular plastic gems, pieces of a very old mirror, and colored wooden sticks.

The final item shows something of my procedure, using a mold made of silicone mixed with flour, with pieces of a Spirograph set, positioned and ready for the resin to be poured.

Allen Schill, August 2023

A small round sculpture in bicomponent resin, colored swimming-pool blue on the outside, with a toy white dove taking a bath.

White Dove in Pool, September 2022. 2,3 cm. ht., 5,5 cm. diameter. Resin and toy plastic dove. (id#1478)

The color here - blue pastel ground to a powder - was applied to the sides and base of the mold - that is, not mixed into the resin - to give the effect of the color water takes on in a swimming pool painted blue.

A small round sculpture in bicomponent resin, colored swimming-pool blue on the outside, with a baby girl doll taking a bath.

Baby Girl in Pool, January 2023. 3,4 cm. ht., 4,8 cm. diameter. Resin and baby doll. (id#1476)

Like the previous item, the blue pastel color here was applied to the sides and base of the mold to give the effect of the color water takes on in a swimming pool painted blue.

A small round sculpture in bicomponent resin, colored swimming-pool blue on the outside, with two baby boys taking a bath with a toy red duck.

Two Babies in Pool with Red Duck, October 2022. 2,7 cm. ht., 4,8 cm. diameter. Resin, baby dolls, and toy duck. (id#1477)

Likewise, the color here was applied to the mold to give the effect of water in a swimming pool painted blue.

A small round sculpture in bicomponent resin, colored swimming-pool blue on the outside, with six baby boys, black and white, taking a bath.

Six Babies in Pool, October 2022. 2,8 cm. ht., 8,6 cm. diameter. Resin and baby dolls. (id#1479)

Here also, the color was applied to the mold to give the effect of water in a swimming pool painted blue.

A small round sculpture in bicomponent resin, colored swimming-pool blue on the outside, with six baby boys, black and white, taking a bath with a white dove.

A Wonderful Day in the Neighborhood, January 2023. 2,8 cm. ht., 9,8 cm. diameter. Resin, baby dolls, and toy plastic dove. (id#1480)

This piece, the culmination of the previous works, is dedicated to Fred Rogers and François Clemmons of the Mister Rogers TV program for their courageous and moral work in the sketch they did to comment on the integration of public swimming pools in the late 1960s. Black and white shared a footbath, they shared a towel, and everything was O.K.. They sent a message that even now deserves to be heard by many.

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin, with plastic letters that spell out a word-play in French by Marcel Duchamp, arranged in a spiral.

Esquivons les ecchymoses des esquimaux aux mots esquis en esquimais, September 2022. 1,2 cm. ht., 8,8 cm. diameter. Resin and plastic letter beads. (id#1481)

I owe this brilliant French wordplay to Marcel Duchamp, who loved puns and wordplay. It comes from a short film he made in 1926 called "Anémic Cinéma" (the title is already a palindrome), in which he shows a series of phrases written out in letters and mounted in spirals on a disc, which are seen to rotate in the film. Generally they are funny, one or two are suggestive. Duchamp published a book he called (in french) "Marchand du sel", a pun on his own name. In Englsh that means "Salt Seller", a pun on "Salt Cellar". Devilishly clever guy. (I'm proud to have added the last phrase, "en esquimais" ("in Eskimo language"), to Duchamp's, first checking it with a couple of friends whose French is more than reliable.

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin, with a moth and plastic letters that spell out a Latin palindrome by Virgil about the life cycle of the moth, arranged in a circle.

Farfallina con Palindromo di Virgilio, September-October 2022. 1,6 cm. ht., 9,8 cm. diameter. Resin, plastic letter beads, and moth. (id#1482)

Virgil's palindrome sums up the life cycle of the typical moth, who can't seem to help but fly into the fire. This one didn't - instead, he flew into a spiderweb in my bathroom and was caught. Some days later he was dead, and I decided to use him. For this I learned the procedure for preparing butterflies for display in a collection tray. Using a block with a space carved for the insect's head, thorax, and abdomen, one pins down the wings so they'll dry in a position that displays both sets. Otherwise, the posterior wings will be concealed by the anterior.

A small square sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin, with plastic letters arranged in the Arepo Square, an ancient palindromic acrostic.

Arepo Square, September 2022. 4,9 x 4,9 x 1,2 cm. Resin and plastic letter beads. (id#1538)

Dating from the 1st century BC, and widely disseminated in the years of the Roman Empire, this acrostic with an arcane meaning was perhaps the first meme.

A small sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin using a miniature plastic egg carton with small, multicolored plastic gems.

Gems in Egg Carton, October 2022. 9,5 x 3,9 x 1,8 cm. Resin, plastic gems, and miniature egg carton. (id#1544)

A small rectangular sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with twelve plastic jet airplanes embedded.

Sharks and Jets, November 2022. 8,0 x 12,5 x 1,1 cm. Resin and miniature plastic jet planes. (id#1504)

When I was a kid I built a plastic model of an aircraft carrier, with many tiny plastic airplanes to fit on the deck. At some point when I was older, I got rid of the model, but kept the planes, somehow knowing I'd use them one day. And I did, more than 50 years later.

A small round sculpture in transparent red bicomponent resin with 22 plastic jet airplanes arranged in concentric circles and partially submerged.

Sharks and Jets Resin, January-March 2023. 1,0 cm. ht., 11,7 cm. diameter. Resin, red colorant, and miniature plastic jet planes. (id#1484)

A small square sculpture in transparent red bicomponent resin with 25 plastic jet airplanes arranged in grid and partially submerged.

Sharks and Jets, January-March 2023. 12,2 x 12,2 x 0,7 cm. Resin, red colorant, and miniature plastic jet planes. (id#1485)

A small hexagonal sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored plastic corpuscles arranged in a pattern.

Corpuscles, February 2023. 10,2 x 11,7 x 0,8 cm. Resin and colored plastic corpuscles. (id#1522)

There were nine colors to these, which allowed me to arrange of them a repeating pattern, 3x3.

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored plastic beads arranged in a hexagonal pattern in the center.

Corpuscles and Plastic Beads, September-October 2022. 1,2 cm. ht., 9,6 cm. diameter. Resin, colored plastic beads and corpuscles. (id#1515)

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored sugar candies arranged in a hexagonal pattern.

Pastiglie Leone, February 2023. 1,4 cm. ht., 7,1 cm. diameter. Resin and pastel-colored sugar candies. (id#1524)

Pastiglie Leone are a traditional local product of Torino, originated by the Leone family, which of course happens to mean "lion". The box is labeled "pastiglie disettanti", that is, pills to relieve thirst.

A small hexagonal sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored plastic opalescent pearls.

Opalescent Pearls, February 2023. 7,3 x 6,2 x 1,0 cm. Resin and plastic opalescent pearls arranged in a hexagon. (id#1523)

Made of plastic and cheap as they come - a dollar a bag but with a beautiful finish.

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored plastic beads in a homogeneous arrangement.

Colored Plastic Beads, September 2022. 1,1 cm. ht., 9,9 cm. diameter. Resin and colored plastic beads. (id#1517)

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with amber-colored dessicant beads in a homogeneous arrangement.

Dessicant Beads, August-September 2022. 0,7 cm. ht., 7,3 cm. diameter. Resin and desiccant beads. (id#1529)

The dessicant beads are what are commonly packed with photographic lenses and anything that should be kept away from humidity.

Corpuscles, September 2022. 1,2 cm. ht., 9,1 cm. diameter. Resin and colored plastic corpuscles. (id#1514)

Corpuscles, September 2022 (backlit). 1,2 cm. ht., 9,1 cm. diameter. Resin and colored plastic corpuscles. (id#1514)

A small square sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with seeds of a Japanese red maple arranged calligraphically.

Semi d'acero rosso, July 2022. 10,8 x 10,2 x 0,6 cm. Resin and red maple seeds. (id#1483)

I collected these seeds from a small tree growing in the garden of my building. Some I plan to germinate and to use the seedlings to grow a few new trees.

A small rectangular sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored painted pebbles arranged in a non-standard US flag design.

Rainbow Flag, October 2022. 9,8 x 12,5 x 1,0 cm. Resin and painted pebbles. (id#1503)

All hail the multitudes that are the United States of America!

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with opalescent hexagonal glitter in a homogeneous arrangement.

Hot Pink Hexagonal Flakes, February 2023. 1,0 cm. ht., 7,1 cm. diameter. (id#1528)

These flakes were a freebie that came with a recent order of resin, and the stuff is very pretty.

A small squarish sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with amber-colored gum arabic crystals in a homogeneous arrangement.

Gum Arabic Crystals, August-September 2022. Resin and gum arabic crystals. 7,4 x 7,0 x 0,8 cm. (id#1511)

Gum arabic is a dry form of a very common, very old glue, such as on the once-familiar on gummed envelopes, also used by artists for centuries. To make the glue, it was sufficient to soak to crystals in water for a time. It was known as mucilage when I was a kid.

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored round sugar candies in a homogeneous arrangement.

Zuccherini, August, 2022. 1,1 cm. ht., 9,9 cm. diameter. Resin and tiny sugar candies. (id#1513)

A small squarish sculpture in gray-tinted transparent bicomponent resin with four rectangles from an antique mirror.

Mirrors, April 2023. 7,3 x 7,0 x 0,6 cm. Resin and antique mirrors. (id#1512)

The mirrors came from an old piece of furniture - a secretary - with many small mirrors lining the sides and back. They have lost much of their silvering, where it is now transparent.

A small rectangular sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored wooden sticks arranged calligraphically.

Colored Sticks (rectangular), September 2022. 9,9 x 6,6 x 0,7 cm. Resin and colored wooden sticks. (id#1506)

A small squarish sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored wooden sticks arranged calligraphically.

Colored Sticks (squarish), September 2022. 7,3 x 7,0 x 1,2 cm. Resin and colored wooden sticks. (id#1507)

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with plastic sequins in a homogeneous arrangement.

Sequins, February 2023. 1,0 cm. ht., 7,1 cm. diameter. Resin and colored sequins. (id#1527)

A small round sculpture in transparent bicomponent resin with multicolored plastic gems in a homogeneous arrangement.

Plastic Gems, October 2022. 1,0 cm. ht., 7,1 cm. diameter. Resin and colored plastic gems. (id#1555)

A silicone mold prepared for pouring resin, with several Spirograph discs arranged calligraphically.

Mold with Spirograph Pieces, September 2022. 7,1 cm. diameter. Resin and Spirograph pieces. (id#1520)

This is here just to illustrate a bit of the procedure of working in resin. Some sort of mold is in order, usually of a mixture of silicone and flour, or just silicone. Some kinds of soft plastic also work very well, such as the containers for food products. I have used also molds made from 4"x5" sheets of photographic film.