Project #1 - Ecstasy
The assignment was to create some sort of iconography with a personal implication and then use it represent ecstasy, bliss, or other extreme positive emotion. I decided to create a series of colored ellipses to represent the drum heads and cymbals of a drummer's dream drumset as viewed by an audience from the front. These circles are colored based on chakra associations that each element of the drumset might have: bass drum is red because it is the foundation, cymbals are yellow because they define a drummer's unique identity, and so on. We then had to repeat our iconography until the image was obliterated so I continued covering the original drawing with graphite ellipses until the paper was mostly covered. I was frustrated by the fact that I realized I would never cover the entire paper (until I had that realization).
Assignment #2 - Chaos
The next assignment was to create a drawing that conveyed a sense of fear, chaos, or other extreme negative emotion. Chaos reminded me of learning about Barnett Newman and his theory behind his use of color fields divide by narrow bands or "zips." This interplay between understanding the chaos and being overwhelmed by chaos creates what is known as the sublime.
Vir Heroicus Sublimis - Barnett Newman, 1950
The zips are meant to represent our attempt to understand the world of inherent chaos and randomness represented by the solid color fields. In my version the zips were made by masking off strips of paper so the void left represents chaos while the gradient created in between represents an attempt to affect the world.
Assignment #3 - Shoe
We were supposed to make our shoe out of wire so I crumpled up about 40 feet of wire and it turns out crumpled wire is a pliable media of its own. The thing that really stumped was the requirement for having a base for the project. One day I was rummaging around the basement of a house on campus and came across a barrel of old shoes, some matched and some not. The piece turned into a bit of a performance because during the critique I dramatically dumped the shoes on the ground and then placed my "idealized" shoe at the resulting pile's peak. I guess a wire manifestation of a skateboarding shoe is the pinnacle of the evolution of footwear.
Assignment #4 - Lines
The assignment was to create a line at least 10 feet long so I held sidewalk chalk in my hand as I rode down the hill that cuts through the center of campus and then goes across a bridge over the Fox River. After 10 runs the intertwining of the lines creating an interesting pattern of similarities and contrasts in the paths I took. The next day the lines had faded in four perfectly straight strips where car tires had passed over them throughout the night.
Assignment #5 - Still Life
For this project we were drawing a still life of all white objects lit by artificial light. This first drawing is pencil.
This was made by cutting out paper to mimic the shapes of a few of the items, drawing on them with charcoal and white ebony, and reassembling them in their original positions.
Charcoal and white ebony.
For this one we had to start with a ground of gray (by rubbing charcoal on sandpaper and then spreading the dust around the paper) and then using charcoal, white ebony, and an eraser to create value.
Assignment #6 - Gandhi
For this one the whole class was given two sections cut from a printed picture of Gandhi with his famous quote, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." No one knew what the final product would be until we had taped it together and flipped it over. We then hung it the old student union where the campus bar is because some patrons of the bar had apparently torn down and vandalized the work of one of the intro drawing classes that was hanging in that building.
Assignment #7 - Ear
In order to create a self portrait with a collage I decided to create a picture of my ear out of most of the vinyl records that I own (and some I've stolen from my parents) to represent how my musical identity is a result of the mixing of all of the music that I've listened to and that has impacted me. Although this was in the basement of my dorm and only existed for about three minutes I think its real power comes in the sacrifice I would have had to make in leaving all of my records on the floor of a gallery and not listening to them for the duration of their exhibition. The final product was about 8' x 5.5'. I used the following photograph as reference:
We actually had to create two collages although the above was my favorite. Here's the second one, similar idea but less well represented.
Assignment #8 - Banta Bowl
The final project was to make a plaster sculpture. I decided to create a topographical relief map of all the land underneath the human development surrounding my favorite longboarding hill in Appleton. The plaster is actually white, not yellow. It's interesting how one can still easily see the influence of humans on the land even without buildings or roads. The train tracks, roads, canals, football field, roundabout, bridge abutment, and artificial river bank shaping all demonstrate the signs of human influence. Ultimately, however, I realized this was a project about my relationship with the Fox River (which I should have included more of). If it weren't for the river Appleton would be incredibly flat and longboarding would be isolated to the parking garages in downtown where it is illegal to ride. The river creates all of the good hills in town and all of the activity of my friends and I seems to be centered around it. Amazing how nature affects even the most artificial infrastructures and pastimes.
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