Inspirational images

As I've been working on the final stages of my piece I have been having an issue with how to actually making the piece look finished and whole. We discussed today about how to create an environment in which the set looked like it's own entity and did not run into anyone elses work. While I have done a lot of research in terms of the content of my project must admit I have not looked at many images of artists doing similar work to myself.

Tonight I changed that and searched a few different installation type pieces I found inspirational. I'm considering the piece needs a sort of backdrop that will differ it from the rest of the walls in the gallery, however with constraints such as what I am allowed to install on the walls this could potentially be an issue. Some sort of wallpaper could be really interesting, possibly peeling and unfinished looking. Or even a different type of baseboard molding in order to distinguish the small "room" I have created.

Here are a few images now littering my desktop background.One thing we talked about in review was this idea of an organized chaos. Making people feel uncomfortable and the tension of having pieces that look unfinished.

While I believe this is just a staged photograph, the composition as a whole has a nice feel to it. I am loving that wall texture with the cracks, dots, and half paper surrounding the doorway.

This is an interesting piece because the white gallery walls seem to only emphasize the artists work. He/she has used this idea of the "gallery" in their favor rather than trying to alter the space at all.

Sr. Review

Had Senior Review this past Friday (I passed!) and got some excellent feedback. I have a lot to think about but if anything it just made me that much more excited for the show. My committee brought up a lot of good comments about the idea of hierarchy as well as making the piece as a whole look more like "organized chaos" rather than chaotic. There was good ideas shared about how to integrate the type better as well as keeping a certain feeling consistent throughout the piece.

I know I must learn to talk about my work much better. This is a very complex subject I'm tackling, and while I get praise for that it truly means nothing if I can't express what I have to say in a simple manner. On that note as I work on all of the labels for the show with my peers show statements on them..here is mine..

Through out my life, later influencing much of my work, I have always been interested in the human subject. I believe we, as people, are more complex than anyone truly realizes. Through the use of anonymous survey questions, personal interviews, and research, this installation piece represents ideas about human connection and self-understanding.

Typographic statements, fabric swatches, old photographs, and a variety of estranged voices create a living, breathing metaphor representative of the personal layers in one’s life. The mix of media creates a non-traditional type of portrait while the specific subject remains anonymous. The idea of memory and self-discovery challenges the idea of how much we truly know about a person. There is good and bad, fear, secrets, and numerous perspectives to everyone’s life story. We are a culmination of everything we have experienced in our life and that story is worth sharing.

Fabric search

Had my last official senior show class this Tuesday before review. It actually went really well, Chitra and I had a good conversation and I'm really liking how everything is turning out. The feedback I get from my fellow students and faculty is always very helpful and things are finally seeming to come together.

I have taken a slight step backwards to some original ideas however, going back to more of a variety of mediums rather than an all digital, vinyl typeface. While initially I thought doing that would help clean things up it seems to actually create a disconnect with the rest of the piece. Instead I am incorporating other ways to display this type that fit more with this idea of subtly and layering.

Also talk of adding in a few more pops of color. Looking at all of my materials again and such I think possibly a reddish-orange might be work really well. I also am looking to do a piece on the floor as well creating a really nice ladder effect that draws your eye from the wall, to the suitcase placed in the middle, down to floor. A trip to the fabric store got me looking at some new materials to incorporate in.

(unfortunately I left my camera in my back-pack and only had a phone to take pictures with. not the best quality)

(close-up) good rug material, seems good to cut into as well.

Possible patterns, a little more wild and yet less bright.

I plan on researching a bit more tonight on various tapestries and quilting/ sewing/ etc. This is all new to me and other than the typography I had previous I am really experimenting a lot here and my biggest concern right now is how to finish off all of the pieces so they look completed while still fitting of the body of work.

hmm.

I liked my project better when it was a mess of pins and things thrown together.

Now as it gets refined everything just seems a bit out of place.

DeVos Place

This weekend I went down to DeVos place to take a few pictures of the space just so I had an idea of where I might be situated as well as for mock-ups of my project in the physical space for my review committee to check out.

I've made a few notes for myself regarding some wall space. Currently I've been photoshopping parts of my piece to one of the blank wall shots and can move on from there.

Collage wall

Moved my collage wall to Calder last Thursday. Been working on finishing up all the final sewn pieces and will post pictures of those tonight now that they are completed. Also finished up all the captions for the photos and finalizing my artist statement. Voice over element has had a breakthrough too for the sound element involving some hidden speakers, a post about that to follow.

Questions for myself.

One thing I really did this weekend was focus on why I started doing this project in the first place. I knew this would help me re-organize my thoughts. After realizing the description of what I was doing was ridiculously complicated and almost confused I knew I needed to think about what it was I really wanted to say. Asking myself a few different questions allowed me to think about it in a different way and therefore convey my message to others much more efficiently.

Why is this project important to you?
It all comes down to people. People as individuals, people as a whole. Its probably part of the reason I chose to become a graphic designer. You not only have the responsibility to create your own work, work that has meaning to you but also learn to convey a message that means something to someone else just as easily. In my creative field there will be things you do that not everyone understands or cares about, however if you have figured a way to get your message to other people you've done a huge part of your job right there.

I care about people. They intrigue me. I like to hear stories of peoples' lives. Like to watch strangers interact with one another. I find it very interesting how complex human's really are. Emotions, feelings, thoughts you may not share with anyone else out of fear of rejection, pain, shock. We want, naturally as a culture, for people to like us. We are superficial beings.
We are culminations of everything in our lives. We take it in with all of our senses. And the truth is, that nobody ever really will understand another person completely. The sad part is, not many people try.

I am out to expose those ideas to people. To create something that says something about human communication, human connections; with themselves, with each other. We see people, look at photographs, hear their voices but how often are we really listening? How much do these things really tell abut a person, about an individual? What would people reveal if we started asking? What would they continue to hide?

Early installation photos

Here are some photos I have of a bit of the installation when it first started coming together, although I've worked on it a lot this week and things are quite a bit different. It's good to see the process however I need feedback from my professor and while working on it here, at home vs. Calder, seems like the best plan in terms of space it's definitely causing me some problems. I plan on taking new photos tomorrow as well as hopefully renting out the graphics camera to go downtown and take a few pictures of the Devos place for my mock-up of the piece in context.


Much of the black text you see here would be vinyl on the wall rather than printed on paper, which is still in fitting with my original plan although I feel like I've added in more type that previously. Also, having a digital typeface (shown here is Bodoni poster italic) was something I did not think I wanted to do and yet it provides a nice contrast with the old photos and fabric in my opinion.

Fabric.

One of my earlier thoughts through this project, once I knew I wanted to create a non-traditional multi-media piece was how much the idea of fabric jumped out at me.

Why fabric?
Fabric is efemeral. It feels personal compared to paper and ink. The type and photos feel like something more than just printed cleen on a sheet. Fabric connets us to memories of our past, almost always someone can recognize the touch, feel, smell of a some type of fabric. I've been working with lace, linen, a stretchy blue cotton that has a very child-like look to it, and burlap (what a combo I know) using these fabrics to combine typography and photos into a somewhat collaged posters/quilt look.
Currently what I have started doing is putting everything together on the open wall in my basement. In the midst of collaging I have gotten a bit away from my original idea. Putting everything together in a cohesive way is what is crucial at this point, making sure I get my point across with everything I am trying to put together.

Type experiments

Because this is such a personal project and one of my biggest passions is for hand-drawn and creative typography it seemed important to start taking some of the survey responses I was receiving as well as important themes I was getting and start experimenting with the way they were written. It is so interesting to me how the way something is written can easily shift your view of what it actually says.

Spring-Breakthroughs

While I haven't posted anything on here in a while I have been keeping track of my progress in other ways, sketchbooks, sticky notes on my laptop etc. although when it comes down to it I still want to keep this as updated as possible.

With review a little over a week away and the show shortly thereafter I am aware I still have a ridiculous amount of work to do. I started realizing that I had perhaps been doing way too much thinking and researching and not enough actual making. This actually surprised me because I don't think I have ever gotten as into the research of a project as this one however, over my Spring Break a few weeks ago I finally started putting everything together and realized I wanted to work out some sort of installation type piece.

I realized that everything I was working on needed to come together in some way that mimicked the ideas I was working on. Obviously this is key to any project, especially in the design world, that your medium seems appropriate to the content. This led to me realize I wanted to do a piece that was somewhat interactive, used a variety of media, and really made you feel connected to the things being shown, read, and heard.

Here was my initial sketch for what I started thinking about in terms of installation. Things have changed a bit since then however the larger idea is still the same.


New post to come.

Love story.

While I have spent most my time this past week peering into the lives of other people...I found myself thinking a lot about love today. It being Valentines Day and all that's not hard to do.

Back in September I found this video and wanted to share it again. Through all these survey responses I have been getting I have found some remarkable answers, answers that would have probably gone unheard of for a long time, if forever. This is a little story of two ordinary people, and someone to the time to listen.

Danny & Annie from StoryCorps on Vimeo.

Danny and Annie were married for 27 years, and this is their story.

A few blogs..

So a big part of my online life is this immense blog following I seem to have. I love catching up on all of the ones I follow, checking out cute things on etsy, inspiring room re-dos on design*sponge and peeking in on the lives of my favorite online families. It's funny how, for those in the blogging community, we start to feel a connection to these blogs. You become used to knowing whats going on, seeing new posts. It's like when your grandfather had to read the morning paper, similar concept.

The funny thing is how obsessed we become with people we don't know. Even the blogs that aren't about the author's life, their dialogue and commentary becomes a part of who they are, and in turn who you connect with.

I have been paying attention to some of the blogs I've been looking at lately to see which ones I have been drawing inspiration from for this project...some of my favorites are linked below...

What I Saw Today
hula seventy
Urban Weeds: Portland Street Style

Survey!

I decided in order to get an large amount of responses easily and in a short time (outside of the personal interviews I have been conducting) I would conduct a simple survey.

So far I am already loving the responses, the answers I am receiving have been great and very insightful. I'm pleased that people are so willing to share some intimate thoughts, meanwhile leaves me wondering if that is only due to its anonymity. Here is the survey, it is also available via facebook. If you felt like taking the time to take it I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Vivian Maier, street photographer and nanny

I love a good story, and this is just that. Thousands and thousands of photographs found by a real-estate agent and some amazing work uncovered. It is not only the story of this particular individual that is relevant to the work I am doing, but all of her subjects as well. As a street photographer many of these photos must be of people she doesn't know. And if there are as many as they say there are then she certainly photographed hundreds of strangers each day. So when do they stop being strangers? Some of the photos they show in this short documentary are quite breathtaking and wonderful candid shots of life in her time. This woman is going to be living on through her photos, which she never even thought people knew about. It makes you wonder about all of the millions of others out there and what they are all doing they never thought people would ever know, or perhaps care, about.

Here is a link to the blog created in her name.
And a few of my favorite photos of hers.

Unreadable notes

Here is how my thought processes are going...not much drawing going on yet, but a lot of ideas scattered on paper.

I also recently spent a few hours in the library, mainly getting lost in the psychology section. Some titles I left with include "Culture and Self" and "Storied Lives" both giving me an interesting insight into these ideas. In addition to my research I plan on starting a survey to get a few varying opinions and answers to some questions outside of my individual interviews. I will post the link as soon as it is finalized.

Thoughts at the start

I am now the proud owner of not one but two blogs here in the blogger community! This one, contrary to my personal blog, however will serve as a collective for my final undergraduate project here at GVSU. I tend to think out-loud and talk in chaotic circles...so here is a chance to spill, read, and re-read, here is an insight into my thoughts as the project develops.

This piece is about people. The ordinary people, the everyday people, the idea that you come in contact with umpteen amounts of people in your lifetime and the lives they live. In comparison to that, the life you yourself are choosing to live. Your sense of self. Your identity. Your ego.

The definition of the term "Ego" is the attempt to mediate between Id (the Id being the inaccessible part of our personality) and reality. It employs defense mechanisms, creates self-esteem, memory, judgment, tolerance, and control. If you think about it, it creates who we are. It helps give us a "self-identity".

So what if we could caught a glimpse into the lives of individuals we don't know. Would we be surprised? Would we feel like we understood? I plan on creating, through research, interviews, photographs, drawings, a look into the lives of the individual. An intimate portrait. A layering of all the things that make us who we are, human, raw, and individual.

Oh so many thoughts...