The Ups and Downs of Process

Post for 10/28:

This week was a little bit of a stand still unfortunately. I spent about 2 hours earlier in the week going to the ReUse Center and PTO collecting more containers; this time water bottles, canteens, and thermoses, and water bottle carriers. Once sitting down (3 hours, Tuesday studio time) and carving again into these objects I began thinking about other ways in which to allow my someone to experience nature besides looking into these objects. I thought about what if they could touch/feel nature by sticking their hand into a compartment, or open a small container and smell it... things they could do without having to look into something. This lead to the idea of having a kit or carrying case to house these objects. I began to write down and collect ideas for these kits and presented them in section on Tuesday along with my process with of objects.

Once having discussed my ideas with the class, I realized there were two main routes I could go and both said very different things. The kit idea lead into more of a therapeutic, remedy based concept, while using a pop can as my container (instead of just a water bottle) spoke to a very metaphorical meaning of contrast between modern society and nature.

In mist of trying to decipher between the paths, I found myself straying even farther from what I truly want to focus on and I began looking into herbal remedies found in nature and how I could form environments and build a kit based off those characteristics. However, after a few hours of sorting through my ideas and research found online (4 more hours) I realized this was too far off the path I what I originally wanted to do and the message I was trying to portray through my proposed idea. While all off this at first seemed like a waste of time, it was good to exercise other ideas and helped me really realize how to narrow down and maintain my focus. I realized what I need to do to advance and that is simply to just go ahead and make one of the objects using a can (preferably the use of a can that has a re-sealable top... I'm pretty sure Monster makes some, however I was having trouble find one today). By having the object produced in a tangible form for me to look at, verse simply think about, I will be able to better evaluate its meaning and see if it works to what I am looking to portray.

So for now its so long to the sketch book and thought process, and hello to physical creation.

Oh, and if anyone has seen/knows of cans that are re-sealable or have twist tops, PLEASE feel free to let me know what they are :)

Keepin' it sort and sweet this week. I'll try to post more this weekend as I work through the physical construction of my object.

Chaio!

Cranking it Out

For the past week (until 10/21), with a mass of built up energy, I pulled my nose out of the books and finally got my hands dirty. After last Thursday's discussion with Janie, Seth, and a a few other peers, I realized there was so much exploring, discovering and experiementing I needed to do that could only be achieved through making/thinking with my hands, and not so much with my head.

Therefore, this weekend I returned home again for Fall Break, and again, hit the Paint Creek trail a couple times and began to collect (4 hours), however, this time I was collecting with a specific focus of "creating an environment" this time. I looked for objects that had specific forms, textures, colors, and beauty that would fit into a container and depicts an ambiance, rather than sticking an acorn inside that would just say "hi, I'm an acorn inside a box." I also was collecting things that I knew would be able to withstand a long period of time and wouldn't degrade or dry out with a couple of days, changing its appearance completely. My findings were a great.

my favorites

While looking for natural objects, I was also looking for man-made containers to take apart, dissect their structure, and experiment with in terms of form and space. I went to Salvation Army in both Ann Arbor and in Rochester, along with another thrift store, but was unsuccessful.... I will be trying again this coming weekend with the ReUse center and PTO.

Surprisingly where I was most successful at my house here in Ann Arbor. Tuesday, I collected at least five different sizes of pop cans, tons of cardboard, pill/vitamin bottles, pencil cases, glasses cases... basically anything I had around that I could stick a knife through. Once I started thinking outside of only water bottle cases, I realized the materials and forms that make up these other found objects could work very well to convey specific environments. (Overall traveling/collecting: 3 hours)

Wednesday I sat down and began writing/sketching/diagraming which types of environments I was envisioning, descibing the type of light flow I wanted, objects inside, structure, color, depth, textures, ect. that I wanted for each in a very specif manner. Creating the inside first helped for me to identify the form of the outside. After I had some solid ideas, I sketched out object renderings of my ideas (3 hours).






From there I began cutting holes into the bottoms of everything I collected and put the objects up to my eye. I took notes on the quality of light flow, how it reflected inside certain objects, the depth and width each object provided and what I liked/disliked about the object. I began sticking different forms inside another, covering the holes with different fabrics, papers, leaves, and other semi-translucent objects to control light and depth (2 hours - then 1 hour continued into this morning).








Today, through mid-morning studio Erica and I began to talk about my collecting and experimenting and got into a great conversation as I shared my work, objects, and sketches. We discussed ideas for other environments, other ways to house them, potential objects to look for, process and more, giving me even more ideas on what to look for/create with this weekend(45 minutes-hour?).

Section was spent sharing our progress in small groups, however, only half the class presented, and I will be presenting mine this coming Tuesday. I plan to share the same things that I had to show for today, but plan to move on quite a bit more, having more objects that I've dissected, but also, I plan to attempt to fully render, as much as possible, at least one object with an environment inside to gain a sense of how the two interact with each other and in the palms of my hands as I look inside.

Note: I plan to post pics of these sketches and my writings... as soon as I find my camera cord! So hold tight for those of you who are visual thinkers like me, and can't follow what I describe :)

Weekly Entry for 10/14... Oh man is time flyinggggg

This week has taken me for quite a spin. This past weekend I made a trip down to North Carolina and back for some family issues, so my mind hasn't exactly been where it should have, but these things happen I suppose.
But now it's time to get down to business, and I am ready to dive in!

Unfortunately due to my travels, I was not able to get much I.P. done this weekend besides more research and reading from the books I previously mentioned (3 hours). The research is great and really gets me motivated to express my ideas and concerns on about humans and our currently diminishing connection to nature. For example, here is a piece that I had written origninaly in my project proposal for this week (but cut it out because it was unnecessary for the assignment), but I feel that it embodies some the reasoning behind the direction I am heading in:

"Over the past few generations, there has become an exponential increase in the disconnect humans are experiencing with nature. This is important because we has humans, whether aware of this or not, depend on nature for many psychological, emotional, and physical attributes. Through my research, I have found various studies that prove nature to work as a form of therapy, of mental release, and an aid in the healing processes for both physical and emotional injuries. Other studies have shown its benefits in the prevention of and aid to existing childhood development disorders, such as ADD and ADHD. Illnesses such as obesity, especially childhood obesity, are also said to be partial caused by detachment that has become so engrained in our society."

The source I find most useful is Richard Lou's Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder, a book from Janie.
Some other inspirational excerpts from him that helped to form my Project Proposal are:

"Today nature is more of an abstraction than reality,"

Nature embodies "Full use of the senses,"

Nature "clamed me, focused me, and yet excited my senses,"

"nature represents beauty and refuge,"

the view that nature is "therapeutic and restorative is ancient"

Wednesday night, I sat down to write the rest of my project proposal, and well.... went a little over board. After about 2 hours of sorting through ideas and writing, I ended up with over 1000 words describing what I wanted to accomplish, what I am trying to express, how I plan to do it, why I wanted to do it and what inspired me, along with future thoughts on where I can see my piece going over time. Obviously this was wayyyy to much detail and unneeded information for what the assignment was asking for, but at the same time, it was a great way for me to organize my thoughts and ideas into a clear focus so I could better explain them in person.

Thursday during the studio I spent most of my time cutting down and refining my proposal to be clear and concise, which was a slight setback since I was very eager to get started messing around and playing with different materials for work to show next week.

However, on the upside, during the section I had the chance to sit down with Janie, Seth, and a few other fellow students to discuss what directions to head in next. I decided the best thing for me to do is literally start making my objects. Trying variety of forms and models to see which would work best for the structure of my objects which will encapsulate specific environments. I plan to head to Salvation Army and the Reuse center to see which already existing forms I can modify to my needs. I also plan on collecting as many found natural objects as possible and start sorting them into which kind of environment they fit into best.

I am excited to see what I will encounter and produce for next Thursday, and and uplifted to start making things again, letting my mind wander away from the books.

Yay for Fall Break! And let the Candy Corn and Apple Cider warm our tummies!

Final Project Proposal

Senior Project Proposal

Throughout my childhood I spent most of my time outside, in the woods of my own back yard, or on the Clinton River banks swinging myself into the water, collecting rocks, or pretending I was a Native American princess. I would take family trips up to Northern Michigan to fish, take walks and spend time on the lake. We’d spend time in North Carolina’s Smokey Mountains to hike and bicycle while staying in a remote cabin overlooking the miles of mountains. These experiences in nature have formed the person I am today. Through my studies over the past years here at the University, I have realized that this is not the case for many; more and more children today are lacking contact with nature as the media is jamming our culture.

There is no other environment that I have yet experienced in this world that gives me such overwhelming feelings throughout all my senses, physically and mentally, as nature does. I forget that modern civilization exists, and the space completely absorbs me to a point that makes me question reality. I want to provide a chance for the viewer to connect with the natural world that is no longer easily accessible in this congested world of consumerism and mass media. I hope to provoke a sense of peace and wonderment, of being in tune with one’s self as part of the larger, pure, natural world, not just a member of the modern technologically advancing society.

I plan to create a series of three easily transportable “personal” objects that will act as escape mechanisms, which mimic and capture unique forms and textural qualities that can only be found in nature. I want not only to stimulate the individual viewer’s visual sense, but multiple senses at the same time. Light, smell, feel, texture, and visual rendering will be vital each of the objects in their ability to bring a different nature-based experience to the viewer. The objects will take on a kaleidoscope-like quality on the inside; a small hole for the viewer to peer into to find some sort of structured environment. The outside however, will be rendered as an unnoticeable human-made product. This contrast between the outer and inner characteristics of the object speaks to our yearn to blend into the rest of society.

I want the effects of my work to take the ordinary details of our everyday lives; such as a stone we would generally pass by on the ground without a secondary glance, and transform it so that we feel the need to hold onto, pick up, put in our pocket, take with us, and if its too big to carry, we wish to mentally capture it exactly as it is in that moment, so that we are able to call upon it at any given point when we find ourselves in our most distressed mental states.

Weekly Entry for 10/7

This Past Week:
Saturday I took the Arts Outta Town bus to the Grand Rapids Art Prize (see previous post for more) in hopes to clear my mind, see what other artist were doing in the world, and find possible inspiration (6 hours spent at the show). As I said before, going through the show really let my mind wander and allowed me to realize I can feel free to experiment with any medium of choice to express my concept/ideas.

Sunday was spent reading a piece from Art and Discontent by Thomas McEvilley (1hr). This piece was great as it discussed a number of concepts and themes and opened my eyes to various processes and materials artist work with to form their work around. I especially liked the passage on "Content rooted in biological or physiological responses," as I felt much of what was said here pertains to my interests in other artists and my own work.

Sunday and Monday night (7 hours), along with all of Studio Tuesday morning and part of the afternoon (4 hours), I spent reading from the 5 books Janie gave me, a piece Amanda sent me, and watched a video on Art and Ecology. I took notes and quotes that interested me from all of these (which mind you was a ton! I filled about 8 pages of lined notebook paper with this stuff) and was really able to sort through my ideas on what my interests were with nature specifically.

Wednesday night I began to struggle a bit, so instead of focusing on writing my self-review I spent time researching, watching videos, reading blogs, etc. on other environmental and land artists throughout the past decades and created another inspiration archive folder on my computer (3 hours). This was a good break from the specific topics I was just focusing on and opened me to a broader view on nature and art.

Still though, by Thursday the only problems I was running into was narrowing my focus, trying to chose between a few conflicting ideas; like do I still incorporate my family strongly in the piece or is it time to let that go and subtly show through my process? How strong of a political voice do I want to have in my piece? I find the concept of children becoming more and more disconnected to nature to be a huge issue in our society today and it hits a spot in my heart pretty hard to realize the facts provided, partially because nature was such a big part of my childhood.

Therefore, Thursday morning was spent sorting through these questions and trying to find the answers to them (3 hours). The processes of writing the "Mock Review" of my final piece really helped me solve some of these issues and come to conclusions about what I want. Therefore, I am quite satisfied with where I am in my thinking processes and am ready to complete my proposal :) YAY!
Thursday afternoon, after a short discussion as a class, I immediately let my ideas pour into my sketch book and the idea of "Nesting" became something was really spiking my interest! You can read more about this when I post my project proposal...

Art Prize

Traveling to Art Prize this weekend really helped remind me that I am totally free to experiment, create in whatever medium I wish. I don't have to be afraid of trying something new and sticking to only mediums that I know. This was a good feeling of relief, while fair itself was fun and full of amazing sights to let my mind wonder :)

Some of my favorite pieces! (Of course I didn't get to see everything, but from what I did, these were great):

Weekly Entry for 10/1

Returning to my roots

Work done throughout the week:

As I have mentioned before, this past weekend I went back home to Rochester Hills to spend time on the Paint Creek Trail by the banks of the Clinton River (2.5 hours). I also spent time with my family, mainly my mother and sister, and tried to make sure I was really absorbing the moments we were in, even if it was the simplest thing of shopping at the mall together and helping them pick out clothes, to the three of us cooking a delicious salmon dinner together (pretty much all of Sunday).


This return to nature and family inspired a whirlwind of thoughts in my head as I looked at the sketches I made, natural objects that I gathered, and pictures taken, that I was forced to write them down by Monday evening (3 hours, see previous post to read the writing).

From there, I let my what I had just pored from my head onto paper marinate so by Tuesday morning in studio I was ready to create something (3 hours). I created a necklace that consisted of a small dish made out of copper that had a black liver of sulfur patina placed on it and then slightly rubbed away, with holes drilled around the side. In the middle of the dish hung a set of red berries I had collected from home, and 3 strands of organic yarn strung through some of the holes held the piece around my neck.

I liked this piece and realized the need that I felt to create this came from the fact that it signified my view on nature as something precious that I want to take with me and hold onto forever. During Section I had been able to express my thoughts and share some of what I wrote and made with my group (30 min). We came to the conclusion that my thoughts and feelings on nature and what I possibly wanted to say in my I.P. project was very broad and covered a large array of topics, ideas and themes. At that point I felt a bit lost, so I went to talk with Jannie for her office hours afterward in hopes for some direction. As I talked with her (15 minutes) we discussed this point of "nature as a precious object" as a possible direction for my project, however I explained my feelings for the need to do something more, show a connection to nature, or give the viewer an experience. She gave me a couple of books to look at also.

Wednesday night was spent writing my I.P. draft project proposal (1.5 hours), which I previously posted, and sorting through my thoughts. Thursday morning Stuido I spent time with Erica looking at my proposal and revising it to be more concise in what I wanted to say (30 min). I spent the rest of the time looking through the book Jannie suggested and gave to me (2 hours). In Section, we turned in our proposals and then I spent time looking back at previous work for inspiration from where I've been and remind me that I have limitless options on what ideas and things I can create (1.5 hours) and then I posted some of the work to the blog. I also spoke with Jannie and Amanda to show them this work and talk about where I should go next (20 minutes). I realized the best thing for me to do right now is read, read, read and write, write, write, and afterward go through and highlight the things that struck me the most and that I was most passionate about to being to focus in on something. That is exactly what I plan to do this weekend.