PRINTS!

My prints are all of temporary dwellings, which is a subject I have been painting throughout college. Instead of using all of the words in the first print, I decided to divide them because I liked them so much that I wanted to do each justice.

My first print depicts a tree house at midnight, stirred by the wind.

My second print is of a barnacled boat on the sea.

My third print encompasses the spirit of exhilaration and my friendship with Michaela.

I painted these pieces in photoshop, a process I haven't really attempted since fooling around in MS Paint as a kid. For the first time, I played with the opacity and flow of the paint, which made my prints seem less cartoon-y (a tendency even my acrylic paintings have sometimes). I hope that I built up the illusion of texture in the pieces, because that is a part of my acrylic painting that has always been important to me.

A Thousand Words

In order to convey the vibrancy and diversity of cities, we created a mural of a city skyline composed entirely of text in many different languages.

Each person has a different method for making buildings. We culled the words from foreign language dictionaries, song lyrics, and poetry. Each member of the group created several buildings, which we compiled into one image atop a subtly swirling background made up of the word city repeated in a multitude of languages. The result is a mural that captures the essence of metropolitan communities.

I used lyrics and poems that somehow relate to a city, some in French, but mostly in English. Each building is made by layering the words again and again until the image began resembling an inky lithography of corrugated cardboard. I made ten buildings by pasting the words over each other again and again until they created the impression of a building. The effect was something like rolling ink over corrugated cardboard, which is particularly relevant to my work.

I assisted with the process of compiling the final piece, though James did most of the work for that step. I wrote the artist statement for the group. I hemmed and grommeted the mural with Cody, James, and Andrew. I supervised the installation of the mural on Wednesday morning.

images of book

My book concept stemmed from a problem I had when I tried to exhibit my cardboard sculptures.  Previously, I was able to explain the functions that I assigned to them whenever I presented the pieces, but when I displayed them behind glass, my intention was lost.  I decided to attempt to remedy that by making user manuals for three of the sculptures.  These included step-by-step instructions for how to use the machine, a small diagram of the essential parts, my statement, and a fold out large, detailed diagram of it on the back.  After trying several different automatic tracing features in illustrator, I finally gave up and traced over the photographs myself.  By doing so I achieved the clean and detailed line drawings I envisioned.  Though I am happy with overall look of the booklets, I don't think they add enough to the sculptures to be justified.  I handed them out at my faculty critique, and everyone seemed to agree that the diagrams did not redefine the objects enough.  I will continue to work on this piece.

Ideas for book...

Though I began this project thinking that I would relate a story from my childhood, I have begun to consider changing my idea.  I'd like to create instructions for using my cardboard machine sculptures.  I want to be able to print them on one sheet of paper and fold them into tiny booklets.  I've been attempting all different folding techniques.  As the final piece, I think I'll print out forty or so and pass them out at thee faculty critique with my artist statement.  Perhaps they could even be my artist statement!  We'll see how it goes...