An artist creates his work in his mind, but the hand is used as an instrument to materialize the ideas. In the case of a painter, the bush becomes an extension of the hands, and thus becomes a connection between the body and the canvas. In the beginning of his career, Rauschenberg abandoned the brush and started to paint with his bare hands as a way to create a closer relationship between him and his art. The process of creating with the hands and the uncertainty of the final product became an inspiration for the design of the urn. An important intention on the project was that the form of the object would be the result of experimentation and the layering of information. The project started with a rectangular volume measuring 3.5 inches in length by 3.5 inches in width and 20 inches in height. These measurements were based on the size of an average hand and the proportion of the human body. The urn is the final resting place of the human body, so the use of the proportions of the body to create the volume creates a connection between the body and the object. The volume was then slowly carved in order to obtain a shape Funerary Urn for Robert Rauschenberg Fall 2009 Grad 3 Studio Critic - Juhani Pallasmaa Nancy Clark
that insinuates how the mourner should hold the urn. Then, the mold was covered with several layers of paper mache. The beauty in Rauschenberg’s artwork is the process that he goes through to combine different techniques and materials into one object of art. The process is sometimes revealed as part of the final artifact, but in many instances the artifact becomes a harmonic composition. In the same way, an additive process resulted in a uniform element that cannot be separated without altering the final product, thus creating the urn.