The event will be a blind sculpting experience, titled “Double Blind,” and will take place from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the McCalla School. The show is open to the public, and attendees will have the opportunity to have their busts sculpted.
Nelson Kaufman, one of the student artists to participate in the exhibit, said it will be similar to a psychological test. No one will know who is sculpting who, he said.
This is how the event will work: the room will be divided by a false wall. The wall will have holes cut into it so the sculptors can put their hand through it and feel participants’ faces. They will have five minutes to feel their way through the lines and curves of the face and head so they can have an idea of what they want to create, Kaufman said. The artists’ hands will be sterilized after each bust creation.
From there, the sculptor will create a bust out of polymer clay based on what they have touched. Both the artist and attendee will be unable to see each other. When the bust is complete, it will be roughly the size of two fists put together, and then the artist will put the sculpture on a conveyor belt to be fed into the gallery.
Linda Lien, a coordinator for the Fuller Projects, said the exhibit will revolve around the experience.
“We are an experimental gallery,” she said. Friday’s exhibit will allow the audience to “experience art in a ?different way.”
This exhibit will be highly performance-based. The artists will be creating work on the spot during the event.
People will have to be open-minded, Kaufman said. However, he said those who tend to go to these types of events are generally more open to these situations.
“We’re banking on that,” he said. “It’s part of the ?experience.”
The idea of the event is to play with how artists receive and comprehend information without being able to depend on sight to compare what their creation and model look like, Tien said. By allowing a stranger to touch their face, it is also about attendees of the event breaking the psychological bubble that is their notion of ?personal space.
The event will be relatively silent. Kaufman said the artists will not be talking to their models so there is no other way to gain a perception about who they are sculpting besides through touch.
For those who are timid of the idea of having someone touch their face, he said people should not be wary.
“They should be open to a participatory experience,” he said.
