3D-2D

The first piece is called; VIOLET

Each piece is meant to be viewed alone, yet it's a two piece series.  The black and white is my more successful piece I fee, in terms of the principles of art and design.  It is also my favorite. It emotes the loneliness and alienness I was trying to convey with the soap at this stage originally, without being too pretentious as I find many black and white works to be.

This piece is called; DUNES

I have two pieces, but the black and white is the finale presentation of my 3D sculpture turned into a 2D piece.

Paperstacking

As might be observed by now, I have not as yet completed this assignment.  Between working full-time, stress about other classes and perhaps being a bit overambitious in the forms I chose for both the realistic and self-imagined sculptures.

I'd say the most challenging part of the realistic sculpture  given that I'd chosen a pumpkin; were the organic bumps and raises that the gourd presented.  I could feel them so well, yet I could not translate that to my paper-stacking.

Here are some in process  sketches and contours to help me tack the pumpkin.

Here are the inspirational statues I found that i found fascinating enough to want to try to imitate.  I loved their block-y construction and what I perceived as an easier stacking ensemble.

And here is what I wished my final stacking to be.  Still really want to try to make this with clay, perhaps a series of them; just didn't work for me with paper. 

Imagination-wise for the individual creation; I still really want to make the design I came up with out of clay.  Badly.  I just couldn't mange to saw or sand my paper-stacks into the appropriate shapes I really needed to create the primitive man.

Memento Piece

For my memento I chose to hail back to my tripe to Ireland, Scotland and Wale.  I had so many great memories there that creating a memento for one of them would be quite enjoyable.

I choose the day we (it was a group of students) went to the cliffs of Mohir.  As a Lord of The Rings and huge Tolkien fan, the cliffs made my day because Tolkien had drawn upon them as inspiration for some of the scenery in his books.

I collected quite a few stones there, some of which I still have today haha.

I also have as few charm bracelets i purchases in Ireland to wear, that I tend to forget about as they languish in my dresser drawers.

As a side not, it's probably nice to know that I worry things between my fingers.  I'm always moving even when I'm sitting down, bouncing my leg or worrying something, such as a pen of rock between my fingers   I've always done it.  I think it's a comfort thing but may also just help me contain my nervous energy.

Given this memory and my interpretation of a memento as a person reflection, a memory special to a person and defined in a way that helps that person remember the memory; I decided to make a worry rock.

Throughout all of these photos I tried to focus on the shadows, and at times the lack of shadows to expand and define the shape of the stone.

 I also tried to showcase the different hues of light upon the stone to highlight the different emotions the memory held for me.  The calm blue of the scenery, the light flush of excitement at being somewhere that held a nerdy significance to me. 

I would use one of the rock from the cliffs, glue a charm I found especially lucky (people rub rabbit's feet don't they?) to the top and have a charm for everyday  A memento that I could use as well as admire. 

On Longing / Chris Turner Handout Responses

I must confess I hardly read these readings.  I'll most likely reread them when I have the times, as the excerpts we read aloud in class were more informative than anything I really gleamed from the reading.

I wrote a great deal of notes in class on the subject but I do believe the few constructive notes I came away with in class were;

The materials of a memento should be as significant as the memory they are trying to convey

A memento is best when it make you emote

A memento must have a compelling story behind it

The history of mementos (such as the babies and their birth mothers' mementos,) is fascinating and I must really do further research for a potential instillation based on the process of mementos

Mementos are of a smaller size

The action of holding a memento can itself mean something

Lick and Lather. Response

Lick and Lather. Response

I was frankly fascinated and yet sort of freaked out watching this.  I found Ms. Antoni's movement a little too sensually made when she was licking the bust of herself, of rubbing herself on the other bust.
 It made me a little uncomfortable to watch this.  I did try to recreate a situation with my soap where i would wash myself with some of it after I'd molded some of the shavings a bit to pay a sort of homage to the idea that you can eat your ideas, absorb yourself to a point and yet wash yourself of your own sins ( which is how I interpreted the video.)
I think this woman's craftsmanship was impeccable, and that I appreciated the idea in print and photographic mediums, just not in a video form.

Metamorphosis

I can't really say this reading way new to me; I've had to read it several times in different classes and as such I didn't really encounter new vocabulary,  I'll list a few words i found interested however, and we can pretend they are vocabulary.
Circumstances
Occupational Illness
Muster
Aversion
Confirmation

As to a general plot line;
At first Gregor is simply lying in bed contemplating his situation in life, and then when he tried to get up for work...he finds himself a different shape altogether than normal!

His family grows frightened of him as he continues to remain in his room, eventually his sister even gives up cleaning his room.

He unwittingly scares his mother and sister with the mess he's amassed as he slowly refuses to eat anything but garbage when the only family member who will still attend him (his sister,) bring him his meal(s).

One day he breaks out of his room, as it has become as much of a refuge for him as a prison from his family, to make it into the living room.  Gregor tries to hide from his alarmed family members but his father strikes him with an apple, which after embedded, Gregor suffers from as a wound for over a month.

Eventually and at last, when Gregor's family verbally acknowledged that the from Gregor has become could not be Gregor, and that they cannot take living with an abomination at home; Gregor dies.  He dies after reentering his room and hearing his family agree aloud that something has to be done about him, that his sister, the only one to help him in Gregor's mind, had been in such a hurry to lock him in his room it alarmed him.  He just sort of, faded away after that.  His life seemed to leave him after an exhalation of breath.



Work

For this paper and ink only solution, I decided to follow the dark color scheme I imagined as I read this story.  I felt the bedroom set would definitely be of a very simple, masculine nature given the characters had a bit of money for preference and that Gregor was a man in a time when manly bed sets were permissible.

I created layers for the sheets and blankets on the bed as they are described in the story, using a bug dotted pattern atop the blanket as a symbol for the actually physical metamorphosis that Gregor undergoes the first night of the story as he transforms from man to bug. The bed was specifically significant to me because Gregor did awake in the bed transformed which mean the transformation itself too place under that blanket, in the bed.

I made a simple dresser as Gregor is described as looking through his things to try to reminisce about being a man for a bit.  I created a scroll, a book and some fake cloths to represent his things.

These two pictures show the textures I tried to convey while constructing this set.  I felt that as a bug, textures would be a very important feature of his furniture with the diminished visual acuity that being a cockroach presents. 

This shot is my favorite  at this angle, the special qualities of the humanistic belongings of Gregor in the chest  is highlighted.   This is the last holdout as Gregor transforms mentally more and more away from his human self.

A shot showing the containment of the setting.  Showing how small his world now is.  The hidden nature of Gregor against the last frontier. 

A shot just showing the layers of the bedding. 

A different angle from Gregor's view.

Gregor himself I created under the bed.  As I had imagined the bed-set early on in the story, as his room is still within reasonable hygienic circumstances, I imagined him as he would be under the bed and hiding from his sister. He didn't wish to frighten her, but he still wanted to watch her.
 This photo in particular I tried to overemphasize the shadows, the finalization of this transformation in order to better communicate the bleakness of the situation.

Sketches Pt. 1

Here are the majority of my sketches, they'll be placed with the original project as well.

Emerging / Turning

This semester has been a huge semester for contemplation in many of my classes, exploring ideas about myself in others, and in this class finding new ways to express what I feel.  I'm in a state of moratorium, of change and growth.  I'm still not done, but i can see myself turning outwards after a period of inward reflection.  I have more of an idea of who I am on a basic level, and I wanted to use this project for masking my identity to show that.  Initially I present a much different version of myself to the world, and I'm gradually opening that up beyond the need for an identity mask.  I may not be simply, or especially unique in the grande scheme of things, but I have my own face, my own purpose and drives.  

I wanted to start out with an ambiguous shape that could be many people, and yet was a tad shapeless enough to not stand for everyone at once. 

 Here are a few process pictures of when my mask was staring to finally take shape.  I went with two pieces so my idea of being masked as hidden couple more adequately communicated.  This way the head almost fit into the shoulder piece like a turtle. 

After playing around with several idea as to what to use for the background so it would make sense symbolically for the mask; I settled upon a nature background. I didn't want anything too provocative because I planned on using the posing of the figure to communicate the growth.
I lifted the idea from the Humanistic and Romantic movements where nature is thought to be the best place to be the best man or woman you can be.  That nature is the respite from the stress and problems of not just city life but the pollution of the human spirit. I don't necessarily follow that creed, but emerging from nature is akin to me, to emerging from a safer place to face the city, the world or whatever else need be.

I wanted to show the mask in an untouched crouched position,l to show how much of a ball my emotions tend to be in when I'm holding them in.  That just because I've pulled back doesn't mean I'm calm. 

Slowly starting to emerge, I have the mask being torn open as I turn to wards to sun, towards opening up, out of nature. 

Here the process is further along, the mask's deteriorating more pronounced as I open up throughout the semester and as I begin to fully stand up and through any illusions of who I am. 

As a final emergence from the masked cage, looking upwards and outward from the self is my new identity.  I'm in a stage of examining other concepts and histories as they fit into my self-concept, not of how I fit into others' stories. This is my own narrative and I'm going to be taking a more active role, a role that doesn't need to pretend or hide what I think and feel.  I am facing the light, with nature and it's reassurances at my back, my mask becoming a background (purposefully in the photograph to make use of the white, and metaphorically,) for myself, and emphasis of who I am today because I have my mask as my past.  My old shelter.

I have emerged, I have grown and I am uplifted.

Soap Carving

Welcome to The Wonderful world of Carving Soap.  This is Chelsea, your tour guide today and I shall be whittling away at and then later altering an scented bar of green soap in to a Guinea Pig, (herein after referred to Dolf.)

These were the beginning stages of carving Dolph I and Dolph II

Dolph II is a bit overeager and a tad creepy looking, my apologies.

This is a subtractive process, I've cut Dolph II into chunks, and laid them out in graduating size.

Then I broiled the little bits of Dolph II in the over until there was a nice and unusual texture/colour overtop. Burning away the top levels of soap. 

This piece is more of a commentary piece.  It's still additive, I used a small stud earring and fixed a broiled bit of soap to a leftover sliver of Dolph II's head.  We as people wear so many bits of animals like feathers and rabbits feet, I used part of the soap to make an accessory.  This picture shares my message of how odd it looks at times to see people wearing animal accessories.

For this subtractive step I warmup up the soap shaving and chunks in a homemade double boiler and then scraped everything out and shaped it by hand.  Circles speak to me of wholeness, and at this point poor little Dolph II has gone through a lot.  I felt that making him whole out of so many smaller pieces and melting away a bit more of him in order to reform something whole was a nice step at this point. Subtractive process.

One of the first processes I completely after carving Dolph II was to realize that some of the pieced weren't fully unrecognizable.  I liked the idea that in some way there would be a piece to recognize for awhile yet.  All the peices are tied together with wax-coated black twine to show in a more pictureque sense that these pieces belong together, were made together and are still grouping together in whatever manner possible.
Meant to be an additive process.

I noticed whilst carving the soap initially that is had almost a grain, the way wood does.  I wanted to do something right off the bat the showed that texture, an integral part of the original structure.  I used a small parring knife to almost pull the slices of soap apart to draw out more contrast between the pieces.  This cutting is what I considered subtractive, especially since I removed several small pieces when reassembling the pieces in line for side by side comparison. 

A bit of Hamster Hamlet haha.  But I really meant it as a view of how one carving is whole and untouched standing upon the remains of the other carving.  This one was whole because the other carving was curled and crushed away.  I left the head whole to be recognized to present a better juxtaposition between the two.  Subtractive process because I've grated some of the chunks left from carving the structural piece. 

 Growth.  I had green soap and I felt compelled to bend to the feelings inspired by the color green.  I wanted something to be able to combine with the soap and promote growth.  I matched the soap with chunks of protein within a glass jar and placed a plant what a symbol of life and growth,) sprouting from the soap. An additive process that combines the soap with other materials to create something new.

For another additive process I boiled some of the soap into water to make it into a liquid, what I feel is the opposite state of solid soap.  I don't have the capabilities to make it into a liquid soap but I wanted to change it's state.  Also; since red is the complement of green on the colour wheel  if I could find a way to turn it from green to the opposite colour as well as it's opposite state, I'd have made the soap into something as far away from the original product as possible.

 Dolph Dolph II Signing off.