Selfishness Washed Out by Selflessness: Octopus Cloud

A social “ill” I want demolish is corruption in government, particularly in Nigeria where selfish greedy people in control cause such a large gap between the rich and poor.

If I had a magical animal that could get rid of this social “ill” it would be an octopus cloud that wood swoop down and absorb all corrupt people in government, then the octopus cloud would then rain renewed people in government who are selfless and want the best for their country and have the mindset of a mother octopus.

When designing this super model, I used wire, cotton, gray thread and hot glue. The wire was used for the structure of the octopus. The cotton was used to make the octopus look like a cloud. The gray thread was used to represent rain. Hot glue was put on the tips of thread to create rain drops that appeared as octopus eggs.

The form of my piece is an octopus in motion. I wanted my octopus to look like it was sweeping over sand and coral in the ocean, except in my case, sweeping over corrupt government around the world. In order to make it look like this, I had the head of the octopus leaning on one side as its legs protrude forward and more chaotic. I love how the cotton makes my octopus cloud appear light and it seems like it effortlessly floats across the sky. The form of the rain drop eggs worked perfectly. The eggs of octopi are translucent and kind of a cloudy gray white which is practically the color oh hot glue. When hot glue is extracted from the hot glue gun, it is a liquid, and when I place the glue on the hanging string, it formed rain drop shapes, and it dried that way. Overall, the form worked out cohesively.

During this process I learned so many things about materials, art elements and principles, and conceptual design. I never thought I would be put in a situation to think up a magical animal that could solve a specific social ill. There was so much to consider. What social ill means the most to me? What animal and why? What materials do I have access too when just using recyclables. How do I want to display and present my animal? And most of all, how in the world am I going to design this to put the movie playing in my head into one object?!?

Well, after I established that the social “ill” I wanted to conquer was corrupt government, I wanted to think of animal that portrayed the opposite of greed and selfishness. I thought of a sea turtle because of a documentary I watched on a particular sea turtle that watched her eggs on the sand and sacrificed her life for eggs. However, this was a unique turtle. Most turtles just abandon their eggs in the sand and only one or two babies survive and make it back to the ocean. I was sad to find this out, so I researched other animals that sacrifice their lives for their eggs and the first thing that popped up was a mother octopus. Mother octopi are known for never leaving their eggs and pretty much protecting their eggs at all costs. It is common for baby turtles to never see their mother because she dies protecting them. After this research, I thought that if government had less than one ounce of this mindset when it came to governing their country, the social “ill” that I am trying to fix would be nonexistent.
When thinking of my octopus’s super power, I did not know what to do. I wanted to find a way to make the people in government act like a mother octopus. Then I thought: “the apple does not fall far from the tree!” I wanted the octopus to give rebirth the people in government. I thought the octopus could maybe suck up people in her suckers of her tentacles, but then I just thought about clouds and its cycle. Water evaporates to form clouds then the cloud eventually releases water again. I then decided to make an octopus cloud. The octopus caters to the new mindset, and the cloud represents rebirth and new life.

In order to create this super animal, I found wire to form the structure I wanted for my octopus. Then I found a bag of cotton (that seemed to be once stuffed) and used it to cover my wire structure. I knew I did not have enough cotton to cover my whole structure, so I had to stretch the cotton to make it work. I actually found that by stretching the cotton, it became more cloudlike because I could see through just real cloud-like qualities. So for the head of the cloud, I glued and stretched cotton all around it. Then I attached the leg wire structure and bent them to make octopus shapes (because I did not want my octopus to look like a spider). Then when I made the correct structures, I then covered them with cotton as well. After that, I suspended my octopus. I wanted to then show what my octopus does and I wanted it to be in action, so I decided to make it rain. So I went and got fish lining, but it was too curly, and rain does not twirl down, so I used gray thread instead. Then I still wanted it to look like rain drops at the end, and when I saw people using the hot glue gun, I noticed that the there were some droplets on the table and they inspired me to make rain drops with it. So I went and hung all my thread at different lengths, then I went back and slowly added hot glue at every tip until it formed a rain drop shape, then I let it dry.

After it dried, I was proud of my project and what it had become. During this process I learned materials definitely make or break a project. One can be inspired by materials alone. Material can portray the wrong thing correctly or the right thing incorrectly. Elements and principles just makes a piece that much deeper. This is what delivers messages and connects and communicated with the audience. Overall, materials, principals and elements must be cohesive with the conceptual design. The design all comes back to all the little things before the pencil meets the paper or in my case, the pliers hit the wire.