I know all of you have been sitting at home waiting for this very moment. That's right. Seed is up and running again!
Ok, so maybe that isn't the case. That's ok. Either way, I realized tonight that as hard as it is to keep up a blog (it really is, folks!), it helped me be a better designer. I'm not sure if it is the pressure of writing a good post so you people are interested, or just getting my thoughts down. I think writing about what I was doing helped me find holes in my work and try and fix them. I'm not sure if it's my particularly productive mood tonight, the music I'm listening to, or the fact that I was just watercoloring and that tends to completely seduce me into thinking I have things in control, but whatever the case, I made the decision to start blogging about my work again.
That's not to say I won't have my weeks when things are a little tough, so hang in there with me if you will. I'm currently trying to go to school full-time and work three jobs (five days a week.) It's been alot, but in the end, I keep telling myself- I can do anything for one year. All the hard work will pay off eventually. And, luckily, I've managed to get some play time in there also :)
I'll start by telling you a little bit about my first studio project. The task was to create a moving art exhibit that could be taken apart, put into a van, taken to the next city and put back together. We started by going to the VMFA and choosing 12 items to compose our exhibit. I didn't really have a rhyme or reason for the items I chose, I just sketched the ones I was most drawn to.
Then I had to figure out how to relate them. In the end, it boiled down to a conversation about what is art? Is intentional art different than unintentional art (or in other words, does a painting differ in its meaning versus a pair of native american moccasins that were made for purpose, but with the craft and decoration worthy or art? Finally, I categorized the pieces in a way that composed three groups- the artistry of craftsman, fine art and modern art.
Then it was time to figure out how to build a structure that spoke to these three groups. My brain was all over the place. Ceiling height, floor, changes, thickness of wall, height of art piece...etc. etc. That's when it came time to make some rules for myself and narrow things down so I could actually get some work done. So I made a study model for each group- something I thought represented the group and I came up with these three (a framed structure for the craftsman, a floating planar structure for the fine art pieces, and a simple box for the modern art):
Once I determined the three building languages, I began thinking about how to represent each in the structure and I came up with this (well, after alot of drawing and thinking and building...)
Someone would enter from this side and notice the framed wall with the craftsman pieces. A decision was made to create a floating ledge around the whole space (12'x12' was the maximum space allowed). This decision was made in order to announce the fact that all of these are art pieces and should be viewed equally.
The entrance:
The final model:
So, that's what I've got folks. Hope I can keep this up! We had to make construction document drawings to show how to put this bad boy together, so I'm thinking I'll share those in my next post.
Night!
