S01.E07: Separation Anxiety

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Quote

The remaining artists get paired up to create two-piece sculptures.

Original Canadian air date: 4/3/19
Original U.S. air date: 7/12/19

[Aulty]

That was a weird episode.

Did they always plan to have one episode were nobody got kicked out? Otherwise the number of episodes makes no sense - unless they lost a contestant before they started shooting.

The sculptures were, I felt, on the same level and it came down to taste? I liked Alex and Janusz more, although I would have liked the weights to be bigger.

The difference in scale made Deborah and Patrick's piece look unbalanced, but I loved the beaker with the solid liquid that Patrick made!

[ElectricBoogaloo]

Interesting that when Janusz got to create the teams, he said that his choice was because he knew Deborah and Alex knew each other and he wanted to split them up. I wonder if that was really true or if was because Alex is the strongest of the other three contestants so he had a better chance of winning with him.

The look on Patrick's face when Deborah suggested their theme be alchemy and changing lead to gold was probably about the same as mine. I'm glad that they were able to laugh together during their interviews though. Ha and Deborah is working with cane again after all her shit talking about it several times.

I liked the twisted coil that linked Patrick's science piece and Deborah's religion piece. For me, Patrick's elements were very successful and technically challenging. The incalmo he used to make the glass look like there was liquid inside was beautifully done.. I also oved the little bits of class he used inside the test tube. Deborah's chalice, on the other hand, looked like something I've seen a million times before. And what the hell was she thinking when she made a 12" chalice with a 12" base? Thank goodness Patrick was able to come up with a solution quickly.

I loved Janusz and Alex's heavy vs light piece. The kettle bells looked so heavy and real. In contrast, the bubbles looked very light and ethereal.

I could not believe that Alex and Janusz were the losing team. They have been the top two contestants since the first week so I was shocked that we were going to lose one of them. THANK GOODNESS no one was eliminated because a finale without both of them would have been a crime.

[GaT]

I preferred Alex & Janusz's pieces, I thought Deborah's chalice was too big & ruined the look.

[justmehere]

I can see the argument that the elements in Alex and Janusz' piece were fairly simple -- I mean, glass bubbles from Janusz doesn't seem like much of a challenge -- but putting them together, balancing them was pretty impressive. I liked Alex's description of the various levels of duality that their piece represented as well. The scale of theirs was appropriate, too: having many bubbles to balance smaller but heavier weights worked well visually, even if it was all glass. The rough texture on the weights was great. Wise choice to have Alex do the weights since he's more known for doing clear items. 

The theme of Deborah and Patrick's piece was interesting - but while Patrick's techniques were great, it was sort of plain looking. (And, yeah, giant chalice...)

I'm glad they didn't send anyone home. I was upset that either Janusz or Alex might have been eliminated, but it would have been terrible to send Deborah or Patrick, as well, since none of the artists were in complete control of the work. 

One question: The contestants have to have all their elements in the annealer before time runs out, and not everything is cooled or assembled at that point, so I wonder if they have a further time limit for assembly. I hadn't really thought about it before, but with those bubbles, Janusz made a bunch, and then they had to determine how many they needed to balance the weights, and then fuse them (or, whatever order). The same, actually for connecting Patrick and Deborah's work with the glass spiral. It's been less obvious in previous challenges, but I did notice assembled pieces that looked different than what went into the annealer.

[jhlipton]

16 hours ago, justmehere said:

The contestants have to have all their elements in the annealer before time runs out, and not everything is cooled or assembled at that point, so I wonder if they have a further time limit for assembly.

One more thing it would have been nice to see, and another argument for the one hour format.

[Bruinsfan]

I agreed with the decision on this one, I felt that Deborah's and Patrick's piece had more artistic merit both in the symbolism and the technical skills involved in producing it.