Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Project 2

Place:

I began with the concept of sitting under leaves looking up at that layering and collage that occurs. Since most of my thoughts about this were of a 3d object hanging, I decided to go down a different path.

The next process took me to a train accident that occurred where most of my extended family lives in Graniteville, SC. It occurred January 6, 2005 when a train carrying a very concentrated form of chlorine collided with another train. The chlorine spilled into the ground and created a chlorine gas which killed 8 people and evacuated the entire town for almost a week. The images of fire trucks bleached white and metal buildings completely corroded in a day was far darker than my original peaceful concept. i created an altered book with cotton, paint, maps, cutouts, and photographs. Unfortunately, on the way to class it became bathed in coffee and separated.

Which brings us to the final concept. I ended with leaves that I cut out of a textured paper soaked in inks, paints, and colored with Lyra pencils on top of a moving blue background. It is the image that one would see in the fall canoeing down the Tennessee River, that has been my retreat and peace so many times.

Monday, February 9, 2009

Space Text Reading

Skip Schukman
I really enjoy the idea of going into one of Schukman's created spaces. There is something about using what is present and then knowing that it will have natural life of decay that rings very true to me. It brings thoughts of Buddhists sand paintings as well as walk through an old growth forest to mind. Since personal interaction is very valuable to me, the idea of working with a client on a day-by-day, at will basis is incredibly attractive to me. It is like he encourages the client to become a child and see what is around them everyday and what it could mean.

Victoria Vesna
While I understand that Vesna's subject matter is time and the digital age and that that in some ways makes her choice of media very appropriate, I struggle with both the portrayal of her works in the texts as well as some of her concepts. It seems that there is a natural inconsistency in trying to create space with no time with the fact that if you capture a static image, it will always be of that moment and time, or if you have something that is occurring, due to the limits of our existance and perception, we will always see and perceive it in a linear time, having beginning, middle, and end.

Mariko Mori
I was incredibly fascinated by Mori's "Dream Temple." The interactive and yet peaceful space is one that I would love to see in person. I think that her utopian concepts are a little lost on me in some of the other works with the alien-like creatures that pop up in random places.