Momento Sculpture- Skydiving

In Process Photos

Final Photos

The memory that I decided to create through sculpture occurred a few weeks ago when my family and I went skydiving for my grandfather's 80th birthday in Sebastian, Florida. This was one of the most thrilling and eye-opening experiences I have ever had. The weekend we spent celebrating my grandfather brought family from all over the country to jump out of a plane together... at 15000 feet! My purpose in creating this memory was to express all the crazy emotions that rush through your body, while bringing the family and worldly aspects into it as well. 

I chose the green half-sphere to represent the Earth. During the minute or so you are free-falling, I was hit with many different emotions and one thought that stuck with me was how small we are in such a huge world. I try to always remember and think it's very important to remember how small we are in this world and how much more there is out there. The view from 15,000 feet in the sky is like no other view of Earth I could imagine. My grandfather and uncles were in the first plane that went up and we all watched in excitement from down below. It was so cool to see them jump out of the plane, all it looked like was tiny white dots until you saw the parachute release. With tilting the whole object, I was trying to recreate the feeling of the initial jump out of the plane, the falling-over-the-edge feeling. 

The 14 pins represent each of the jumpers that day, all placed at a different position but closely associated, while the bottom "pin" represents us as a whole family. Each pin is placed in a different angle, and at a different length representing each of us in the different points of life we are experiencing. My grandfather, just reaching his 80th birthday, is where everything else grew from; his pin is the longest, while his children are at the next lower level, and their children lower (my brothers, cousins, and I), and the two gold pins represent the friends that joined us. 

The final element to my momento is the glue. This crazy, unknown shape represents all the emotions running through every inch of your body as you go through the whole experience. One of the scariest moments is sitting in the plane on your way up, and the scariest is sitting at the edge of the plane waiting for your tandem to let go. The moment he let go all of the fear and anxiety was released, which the straight line of glue to the bottom pin is showing; the craziness was calmed. Pure euphoria. Basically, every emotion you could imagine was in full throttle from my toes to hair. I was really happy with the way the glue came out. Drying it on my cutting board left a grid-like pattern, like it could be the attitude and longitude lines of the Earth and when applying it to the sphere I drew an "x" as if it were the landing zone. 

In other words, GO SKYDIVING IT WAS INSANE!