Meet Billie.
Concept
In 2018 I was invited to an exhibition called Queer Craft. I had used a clunky program to create a fictional child, named Billie, using photos of myself and my husband, wondering what a biological child would look like from a same-sex couple. The finished work was a low-resolution 2D blue-and-white image in porcelain.
Now with access of Artificial Intelligence, I have continued this project to make a high-fidelity sculpture of my fictional son. This image was the first step in making a physical representation.
Process
To get Billie from an image to a physical sculpture, a designer was hired to build a 3d model. I decided to have the model made without hair for easier sculpting in clay.
From the 3d model I used a printing service to create a mask-like object in plastic. I scaled up the head to be anatomically correct for a 6 year old when calculating the shrinkage of porcelain.
A urethane mold was made and porcelain was used to press into it. I used a clay that vitrified to an almost glass-like surface without glaze, giving a very skin-like appearance.
