Body Project

I'm not going to lie, this project was brutal. Perhaps the most emotionally and mentally draining project we've had this year. I think part of the difficulty for myself and our group in general is that we were trying to coordinate the efforts and ideas of three people, all of whom approach art very differently and wanted to go in very different directions. I prefer the approach of exploring material and building a concept out of a workable vocabulary rather than trying to express an idea first and foremost and letting the medium arise from the concept itself. I also usually try to be conscious of the time commitment required for most projects because I find it really difficult to put in more than fifteen hours a week at the studio outside of class. However, with this project I felt that I was fairly discouraging of some of the projects that were discussed early in the process because I thought a lot of them were too ambitious, so when we finally settled on a material to use an an idea for it I was wary of raising my concerns about the time constraints. They were probably valid, however, because I don't think we were able to create a piece that was as large as we would have liked it to be, and scale was a very essential element to the piece that was somewhat lacking in the final result. Overall, I'm just relieved to have this project over. I feel like the individual strengths of everyone in our group were lost in translation and that our attempts at collaboration really led us to create something that was an unhappy compromise of all of our ideas.

Body Assignment Part 1

After our class discussion today, our group decided to move back to the vocabulary that we had been exploring with the cloth circles. We were all really excited about that as a material, and the concept we had been previously working with seemed difficult to complete in the time limit and wasn't really coming together cohesively. We're still playing with the materials, though, which is something I think we needed to do a lot more of earlier in the project, but it's definitely better late than never. My own personal exploration is with the little gold octagonal caps. I've found that they fit together to create a perfect sphere if you line up the sides, leaving squares in between each group of four octagons. I think it would be cool to make a sort of helmet by hanging a sphere made out of these from the ceiling. There would be a hole in the bottom large enough for a person to fit their head through. I think the reflectiveness of the gold finish and the geometry of the interior would create a really interesting immersive experience by diffracting the light that would come into the space through the square holes. I'm not sure how to expand on this concept though. I'll be curious to see what we decide on as a group for our final project, but I think the exploration we're doing now is a lot more productive than when we were trying to force a concept with a vocabulary we didn't quite understand.

Skills

List of skills I have:
Matlab and Maple (both Engineering computer programs)
Some very basic Photoshop
Some very basic Garageband
A touch of iMovie

List of skills I would like to have:
Photoshop (I feel illiterate not knowing how to use Photoshop well)
Illustrator
Web Design

Furniture Project

I really enjoyed the furniture project. For how little time I actually had to create my piece, I thought it turned out pretty well. I liked the idea of playing with dimensionality, so I created my three-dimensional bookshelf by making two-dimensional frames out of the wood that I stacked on top of each other and screwed together. There were two different frames, which I think made the design a little more interesting as it broke up the space in a neat, linear way, so that the shelves were composed of slats with space in between. I thought it was a good introduction to furniture making, and I enjoyed working with wood as a material. There was something very satisfying and solid about the final product. In critique, other people mentioned turning it different ways, which is something I'd really like to explore. I think if I were to expand on the concept I would try making something that extends to different depths and would be more versatile in the ways in which it can be oriented while maintaining it's basic functionality as a storage unit. I think there are a lot of untapped sculptural possibilities with my design that I'd like to explore further.

Tin Foil Experimence

The tin foil project ended up being a really great experience and a lesson to me in how useful collaboration can truly be. I must admit I was skeptical as to the practicality of Lizzie's idea of creating a ceiling of tinfoil with holes punched in it to replicate the night sky with stars. I also was really attached to the idea of using tinfoil strips in a large piece, and I was afraid the two weren't compatible. However, we came up with the idea of creating an immersive space that would combine our two ideas. We ended up with a tinfoil sort of igloo whose floor was covered with tin foil strips. I thought Lizzie's construction of the structure was really really amazing, and I was incredibly impressed with how much thought and effort she put into it. She created a really ingenious way of attaching tinfoil hooks to the roof so that it could be suspended from the ceiling and stay upright without external supports. The space is really wonderful inside. Because of the tinfoil, it became warm from trapped body heat, and the pin pricks of light in the ceiling lent it a very soothing atmosphere. I also really enjoyed the effect of the tin foil strips because it added a tactile and aural dimension to the experience. The strips invited play, which was in keeping with the whimsical nature of the structure, and the sound they created seemed to sort of echo in the space so that it drowned out outside noise without being too overwhelming. Overall I was very very happy with how well this project turned out, and I was really lucky to have such a wonderful partner!

Team Lunch Discussion

Lunch at the faculty club was really lovely, and it was nice to be able to talk to everyone in the class and get a sense of who they are outside of the studio. Richard's talk was great, and I really enjoyed his ideas about working even when you're not feeling well because I know that I sometimes run into creative blocks and get frustrated and simply stop creating anything. Clearly he's found a good way to overcome that frustration, and I think I might try his approach in the future. I can certainly see myself becoming creatively drained in this class, but I hope that the collaborative nature of our work will help feed my creativity instead. I'm intrigued by the idea of creating an entire piece as a class. I think it could be really interesting, particularly if it were on a scale large enough to allow everyone to exercise their individual talents. Perhaps a public installation or something of that nature? The idea of a performance piece is also really interesting. It would be hilarious to have a flash mob as a class, and it's such a fun group of people that I think it could really work well. I'm excited to see where our collaborations might take us in the future.

Bread Dough Part II

I enjoyed working with the bread dough much more the second time around. I found myself intrigued by the process of using wire frames to mold the dough onto. I created the frame for my first piece by cutting triangles out of wire grating and then attaching them together in an asymmetrical pyramid shape by weaving wire around the edges of adjacent pieces. I laid strips of dough around the frame, connected down one edge with a strip of dough. Using strips of dough made it much easier to work with, and the wire grating allowed me to shape it fairly easily. I was pleased with how this particular piece looked when it baked because it held it's shape and didn't change too drastically. I made two more pieces by wrapping and draping a long sheet of dough that Jake had stretched out over frames I had made by bending wire grating. I really liked how these pieces looked before they were baked but while they were baking the dough shrunk and cracked, so neither of them turned out quite as I had expected. I was very impressed by other peoples' projects, though. I thought overall the pieces we made were a lot more ambitious and interesting than in our first round of experimentation.