Hug + Blanket = Hugket

For CFC (context, form, concept) I've mapped a hug for our place mapping assignment. I wanted to get at the warmth, security, and enveloping love feeling you get from a good hug. I did this with a blanket (they don't call them security blankets for nothing).

The Hug Blanket

As I posted before, the whole idea was two separate people coming together. So I (rather literally) put two people on the blanket, their silhouettes that is. They are of course, myself and Kara (my fiancee). I hand sewed the cloth silhouettes onto the blanket, this took forever and I'll think twice about doing it again. But the final product was much more successful I believe because I took the time and the imperfections associated with hand crafted works. I chose the color red to represent love and passion. I mean, do you buy yellow roses for the woman you love or red?

When the person interacting with my hug blanket piece wraps themselves in the blanket they bring the two sides together thus bringing the two bodies together to form one body. I don't have pictures of people in it, my classmates took some pictures, hopefully I can get some from them to illustrate it being experienced.

I presented the piece today in class and had a critique, I think they for the most part liked it. I think I was successful in getting across my feelings for the place, what I found to be important about at hug. Maybe it was because other people picked places that were not supper important to them or places hard to define, but I feel that mine was one of the most successful.

Justin Finkmaster Flex (his nickname, I'm not even sure of his real last name, Finkleman I'm pretty sure), did a piece that I was really quite impressed with. The link on his name goes to his blog posting of his project. He did being scared out of your mind at a police station (being scared for being in trouble). It was really well done and I really felt uneasy and felt his anxiety and tunnel vision with the way he projected the animation and the sound. I just realized that it's actually me looking into the tube on the last picture. Sweet.

At any rate, A few more of my piece being put together.

Pinned down, waiting to be sewn.

Close up of the stitching (all done by hand).

Thanks for looking!

All Wrapped Up In Paper, Now What?

So, we have our latest assignment in CFC (content, form, and context...Michigan likes acronyms).

"The purpose of this assignment is to make a perceptual investigation of a physical space. Your task is to reveal aspects of this place that you find significant and to make a work as an expression of your experience of this. You will develop a strategy to subjectively remap a place as an 'experimental terrain' (i.e. you will experience, perceive, record, and map not only the physical aspects of the selected 'space' but also the mental aspects that make it a 'place' for you)....This project provides the opportunity to study the relationship that exists between the material and social fabrics that from our built environment."

So, when this was assigned I was stuck off the bat. I decided eventually to do a piece where my place was besides Kara, in a hug. A very safe, comforting, enveloping and loving place for me (she is my fiancee after all!). I kinda wanted to do a projection piece where pictures of us (extreme closeups) would be projected around the viewers and our voices murmur sweet nothings in the background.

This was my first sketch, the cube. People would stand around it.

I then evolved that into the surround version. The screens would surround the viewers.


I actually wrote in my notebook...
My prof, John Marshall, then kindly informed me that besides this idea not really getting at the enveloping good, safe feeling I was getting at, it was just creepy for anyone who was not me or Kara. He had a very good point.

So, back to the sketch book. John started me off with the idea of a blanket. I went absolutely nowhere from there and last Tuesday, he wrapped me up in a paper 'blanket' so that I could experiment. I'm laying there with paper above and below of me with a sharpie in hand and was instructed to "map myself". What? All I can see is an inch in front of my face. K...map myself. I'll trace my body! So I did, badly as well. It's hard to trace your own head when laying down.
So after I trace myself, I stand there drinking my coffee and decide to have a classmate trace me on the other side of the paper that was on top of me. After this is done it hits me. Ever seen those magazine adds or illustrations where you fold the two point A's together and the two point B's together along the dotted lines and something comes out of the image at the end? That is more or less what I'm going thinking. But with a blanket. You have two cloth cut outs sewn onto an open blanket. Fold the blanket together, close it, and you've got one body showing from the two halves of each body. When the blanket is open the hug has not happened, the bodies are separate. When the hug is happening, the blanket is closed, the two bodies have become one body.

A few pictures of the idea from my sketch book.


I'm really terrible at sketching people. Sorry.


I'm looking forward to figuring out the rest with Kara this weekend. I mean I really can't figure out a hug without being in a hug can I?

Thanks for reading.

Art from Text

Our latest project in CFC was really interesting. We each found an image of some artwork from the 20th century with a emphasis on the human condition (what ever that means....) and we then described it with one page of words. We were supposed to be as vague as possible with our description, and just describe the feelings the work exuded with out saying what exactly is on the work. I found some painting of an execution. I was really vague with the description and pretty much told the girl who got mine that one party held absolute power over the other. She made a 12 foot tall spaceship/phallic symbol with a light box and picture of a womans face. It was the robotic-sexual revolution/sexual enslavement of the humans. I guess that's absolute power in a way. Anyway...

I got a description that told me all about what was there, but not the feelings exuded from it. I started to latch on to a part of the description that said that there was "a name" and a "month, day, year". I liked how anonymous this was and was pretty much the entire catalyst for my entire project. Also there was a description of what seemed to me to be bars like crossing the painting (it was a painting that was described, I forgot to say that) and how they pulled your eyes in a clockwise way around the painting.

I posted some pictures of my sketchbook below. The lower the pictures the later the sketch.

In the top sketch (my first) it's pretty much the literal sketch of what was described. No content, form, or context or anything like that yet.
The second sketch was the first with the arrows, my tongue in check way to lead the viewers eye around my piece. Setting up the basic building block of my project here.

In this series of half finished sketches, I started experimenting with maybe cutting the person up in squares. Picking squares was a happy accident. It's looking more like the building blocks of my project now, but concept and context are a very long way off. I know, I can't sketch people very well. You'll have to deal with my disability just like I do everyday.

This sketch where it really started to click. It is the basic overview of what the project would look like, each square represents a building block part with an individual and a famous person (more on that below) and the A Name and Month, Date, Year over the whole thing.

I had made an experimental image with Illustrator of cutting an anonymous person up into the blocks with another anonymous person, I used a picture I had with me of Kara and what I thought was a random picture of a man from Google images. I showed John Marshall the print and he sent me towards this sketch and all my concept and context because apparently the man I had found was Robert Mapplethorpe, a rather controversial artist. He had no idea who Kara was, but knew who this other guy was. It was the exact opposite for me.

It got me thinking about anonymity and the individual. Thinking about individuals got me thinking about how we are all individuals in our own way, but as we individualize ourselves from one group, we put ourselves into another group that has similar qualities.

Combining the two thoughts I started asking people (roommates, friends, fiancee) to name one famous individual that they could immediately recognize by their face. I only told them it was for a project on the individual I was doing. I got responses ranging from Bill Clinton to Justin Timberlake and to Malcom X. I then digitally put them and their celebrity of choice together in one of the template building blocks of A NAME, the arrows, and Month, Day, Year. I then arranged these around the edges of foam core board. Over the whole piece I added another layer of a larger A NAME, Month, Day, Year, and arrows. This covering layer was the group. Every individual was part of a individual group together on the board. All this thought happened over about 20 minutes. A week and half of sketching culminated in one happy accident and a hell of a

Below is the finished, presented work. Starting from the top middle and working clockwise, the famous individuals (you don't get to know who the anonymous individuals are, that would defeat the purpose!).

Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, Bill Clinton, Malcolm X, Einstein, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Angelina Jolie, and George Bush.

Probably the most important part for the viewer is the mirror in the middle. I cut out a template square cut blocks, arrows and the text and glued it over the mirror. I did this specifically to engage the viewer, they could literally see themselves in the piece. I did this because sometimes when I'm trying to understand a piece of work and I need to first take a leap of faith to understand the work and immerse myself into it, I have a hard time doing so.
I reversed the order of a viewer working their way through a piece and directly brought their face into the picture along with the other anonymous individuals. Your face would only be there for as long as you stood at the piece, and would be replaced by the next anonymous individual. I wanted to make it a bit easier for the viewer to "get it".

I presented it the work yesterday, I think it went over pretty well in my critique and I'm really happy with the work. I wish I had spent a bit more time professionally putting the physical piece together. Also, I should have made it bigger to make it less busy. Instead of 8.5" X 11" individual prints making up the image use 10" X 15" or something like that. Then the over all piece would be bigger and the black text and arrows would be a bit more spaced out. I also wish I had a bigger mirror to cover the entire middle (that one is from a hand held mirror that I had to take apart). But overall, I'm happy with the piece.

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In an unrelated note, I wore my new vest today over a button up shirt. I'm feeling very confident in how I look right now. All secure in my fancy vest.

Trash Pants, Trash Pants, What you gonna do?

I received some great comments from the Trash Pants Company and they were interested in the trash pants I made. They are totally different types of pants, you know, seeing as how their pants are actually made of of fabric not milk bottles. But anyways, they directed me to one of their youtube videos they had made as I might be interested. It's pretty funny.



Thanks for looking and thanks to Leigh at Trash Pants for your interest!

The Presentation of the Trash Pants

So a few weeks ago , i presented my trash pants to my class. I had designed them to inhibit my movement so as to make me more aware of how much trash I created day to day so I had the class follow me on a walk. We went down the hall to the media center where they sell coffee and bagels among other foodstuffs and mediastuffs. I bought a bagel. Turned out to be a flavor I wasn't to fond of (cherry something). I bought the bagel because I wanted to do something that everyone could relate to on an everyday basis, buying a snack. I don't know if everyone in my class got it, but I heard a few "Oh, I get it".

I'm pretty happy with how the pants and their presentation came off, the assignment was to create an extension of your body and I'm not sure if I totally created a physical extension, but I believe that I was successful in creating an extension of your awareness of your body and what one person can create inadvertently.

Walking down the hall to the media center at the end of the hallway.


Buying my bagel.

Exhibiting the lack of range of motion. I couldn't sit down.

Thanks for looking!

Trash Pants Pt. 2

So I'm finally updating on some of my work for CFC I and the trash pants. I've done a bit of work since my last update, and a bit of work since I took these pictures.

All in all, they are coming together pretty well, I've tried on the legs I have done and it's going to work pretty much like I want it to I believe. Now it's on to the crotch and butt. That's going to be the hard part, but I think I'll be able to make it all work for me. I am running low on milk bottles though, might have to incorporate in some OJ and apple juice bottles.

And now a run down of what has transpired...

Cleaning all the milk bottles.
This was with out a doubt the worst smell I have ever smelled in my entire life. Several of these bottles have been in the recycling bin in our back yard since September. Yes, almost 5 months. It was horrible, I never want to drink milk again (or at least not for a day or two). I opened them all and let them air for about 20 minutes. As I was taking the lids off these things, I was literally gagging. And I don't mean literally in the "I literally laughed to death" crap, I literally gagged. My gag reflex kicked in. Any more bottles, and I would have thrown up.
Literally.

They smell little to none now that they meet their match of hot water and soap.

The first leg section, it ended up being the second to the bottom left leg section. Still figuring out the best way to go about making these pants at this point. Creative juices curtsy of Heineken.

Just a close up of the twist tie fastening system. I'm also using bent up paper clips in some sections to insure rigidity and lack of wearer movement.

Workin'.

Left leg finished (almost).

A look down the left leg.

So the trash pants are a little further developed now (the right leg is nearly done) and now it's on to the butt and crotchal area. I'll be working on the suspenders this weekend at home (I'm making them out of old bicycle inner tubes!).


Oh and not really related to art, but I'm excited about it so here you go, I signed on an apartment here in A2 for next school year this week. So much nicer than my current house. A picture of what will be my room below, also the living room.

The bedroom from the window looking towards the door, closet, and walk in bathroom! (Yes, walk in bathroom.)

The living room.

Also, the floor plan. My room is the larger bedroom in the back right! Woo walk in bathroom!

Thanks for reading and apologizes to my CFC prof, John Marshall, that I didn't get this information up right away yesterday!

Trash Pants Explained

Not My Trash Pants

Everyone wears pants, and everyone can relate to the plight of the trash pants.

What are pants anyway?

Pants.
I can't sleep because of pants. I can't sleep because all I can think about is pants. Why pants?
Why did I decided to make pants? Hell, I don't know. I decided to make pants because when this was all announced*, I thought, "PANTS!" It's that simple.

I've got the context and the form but not the concept. No concept of why pants. (I wanted to tell my prof, John Marshall, well why not pants! But that wasn't a good answer. But it would have been funny.)

FAAAANNNNNCCCCCYYYYYYYY PAAAAAANNNNNTTTTTSSSSSS!



Well at least I finally downloaded some Tegan & Sara. I heard "Back Into Your Head" on the radio once or twice and finally got some of their stuff. Great stuff.
I think I like chick rock. Oh well. It's really catchy. Check out their myspace to hear some stuff.

*the project is for CFC (concept, form, and context) II. It involves a larger than life add on to your body, made out of more or less, trash and recyclables. I'll detail my plans more thoroughly later when they are finalized.

I'm going to bed now, I needed to vent on PAAAANNNNTTTSSSSSS!!!!! Thank you for reading!