Studio Foundations: 3D
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Halfway ThereThe final assignment for the class was open ended, allowing us to create whatever it was that we wished to create utilizing the tools and knowledge we had gained over the semester. There was no limit to what we could do beyond our own limitations.
My immediate thought was the 1000 paper crane Japanese legend. I have done origami projects before but never on such a large scale with such a tight time limit. However, this wasn't the only thing on my mind when we were informed about the final project. A year prior, I had been in a major accident that had really affected my life and with the year anniversary still fresh in my mind, I wanted to dedicate this sculpture to using what has happened to us and moving on, moving upward. I started folding cranes whenever I could, but, due to having more on my plate than just this class, I was forced to shift my plan slightly. I made 501 paper cranes out of 6 inches by 6 inches paper. I didn't do a single color because what shapes us and lifts us up isn't just one thing, its many. When all the cranes were made, I strung them on a single strand of plastic thread and curled the cranes around and on top of each other. The only part supported by a wire structure is the branch reaching up from the base. Beyond that, the paper cranes are supporting themselves, the sculpture reaching 2 feet 6 inches tall. |
Art Gallery
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Long before we had the full parameters for this project, I already had an idea of what I wanted to do. This project was to be an installation piece that worked and correlated with the space it was a part of. I chose to do mine where I worked, a library that serves a diverse community. The library as a district has done a tremendous amount of work to reach out to the community and to draw people back into libraries, to break the stereotypes floating around, and to help those that come in to grow and flourish. A large influence for this project was that a large part of the community that frequent the branch I had been working are children.
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I had done a project prior to this where I had created people using pencils and wire in a very similar fashion to how the crayons here were turned into people. The idea was part ingenuity, part influenced by Peanut Butter and Cupcake by Terry Border - a children's book I had handled several times with my work that intrigued my interest long before I took this given class, and I wanted to use this way of creating figures to create an art gallery.
The artist statement beside the installation read: Made using foam boards and crayons, the sculpture was created to celebrate the third week of Artober at Anythink Wright Farms. The branch I was working at was celebrating Artober where each week of October was dedicated to a specific type of art. Each piece of art in the miniature gallery correlated to an event happening at the library that patrons could participate in for that given week. All but the wooden sculpture before the orange crayon. That was a guest installation piece by Sebastian Smith, a sculpture student at Colorado State University in Fort Collins to represent the other installation pieces hosted at the library |
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What Makes My Wings
For one of the projects in class, we were to create a wearable piece of sculpture that spoke of some aspect of who we were.
I had some trouble with this one but it wasn't because I couldn't think of anything. I had a lot of ideas of what I could do, things I actually wanted to do, but each sketch of each idea just wasn't sitting right. I knew I wasn't going to have a lot of time to make it. I was in other classes, working outside of school, and doing other class projects. I needed something that wouldn't take much time but still spoke of who I was. After three pages of speculation, I stumbled across a thought. A lot of what I create are writings and drawings, stories depicted in both word and illustration. While a lot of what I create deals with worlds others have created, my fan art and fan fiction is still a large part of who I am. Both things have allowed me to grow as both a writer and an artist, providing me with muses that allow the thoughts and ideas to flow.
I started listing out the stories that I had worked on that I was not only proud of but I held close to my heart. There weren't very many and a few weren't even fully written out, just blocks of texts that held nothing more than the concept of the story. From stories, I went to artworks and did the same thing; I selected the drawings and digital creations that I was both proud of and held close to my heart. Both lists - one for drawings and one for digital creations - were extensive. Surprisingly, in the end, it turned out to be just the right amount.
I then starting crafting ideas of what I could wear while using these things that I had created.
I had some trouble with this one but it wasn't because I couldn't think of anything. I had a lot of ideas of what I could do, things I actually wanted to do, but each sketch of each idea just wasn't sitting right. I knew I wasn't going to have a lot of time to make it. I was in other classes, working outside of school, and doing other class projects. I needed something that wouldn't take much time but still spoke of who I was. After three pages of speculation, I stumbled across a thought. A lot of what I create are writings and drawings, stories depicted in both word and illustration. While a lot of what I create deals with worlds others have created, my fan art and fan fiction is still a large part of who I am. Both things have allowed me to grow as both a writer and an artist, providing me with muses that allow the thoughts and ideas to flow.
I started listing out the stories that I had worked on that I was not only proud of but I held close to my heart. There weren't very many and a few weren't even fully written out, just blocks of texts that held nothing more than the concept of the story. From stories, I went to artworks and did the same thing; I selected the drawings and digital creations that I was both proud of and held close to my heart. Both lists - one for drawings and one for digital creations - were extensive. Surprisingly, in the end, it turned out to be just the right amount.
I then starting crafting ideas of what I could wear while using these things that I had created.
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If you ask someone that knows me, they would say, "If Ashara had to choose between flight or invisibility, she would choose flight as long as it meant she had wings." The idea of being able to fly under my own power, my own strength, has always been an intrigue of mine and fanciful wish. This thought, this reminder of what I wish to do every day came to me when I was first doodling for this project. It was the reminder I needed.
The final idea was a collar of sorts that had feathers sprouting off the back and that hid my mouth from view, though the collar sat several inches from my face. I sometimes have difficulty communicating with people and I feel that my voice gets lost, but when I create either stories or works of art, I'm able to produce a voice that's heard. That's why the collar sat so high.
The collar was created out of denim and a wire frame. The denim was hand stitched all the way around. As for the feathers, they were printed digital collages. The initial shape for the feathers and the layout of the text was created using Adobe Illustrator while the collage of drawing and digital creations was created in Adobe Photoshop. Each "feather" was actually two pieces of paper glued back to back on a strip of curved metal that created the boning of the feather. The intent was to have the side of the feather that faced inward to be the side with the stories and the side that faced outward to be the collage but a miscalculation ended up not allowing that to happen. In it's own way, how it turned out spoke just as well as what I had initially planned. After all, each feather was still unique. No two feather had the same image, nor the same block of text.
The final idea was a collar of sorts that had feathers sprouting off the back and that hid my mouth from view, though the collar sat several inches from my face. I sometimes have difficulty communicating with people and I feel that my voice gets lost, but when I create either stories or works of art, I'm able to produce a voice that's heard. That's why the collar sat so high.
The collar was created out of denim and a wire frame. The denim was hand stitched all the way around. As for the feathers, they were printed digital collages. The initial shape for the feathers and the layout of the text was created using Adobe Illustrator while the collage of drawing and digital creations was created in Adobe Photoshop. Each "feather" was actually two pieces of paper glued back to back on a strip of curved metal that created the boning of the feather. The intent was to have the side of the feather that faced inward to be the side with the stories and the side that faced outward to be the collage but a miscalculation ended up not allowing that to happen. In it's own way, how it turned out spoke just as well as what I had initially planned. After all, each feather was still unique. No two feather had the same image, nor the same block of text.