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!

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