bowl

i love it when i can look at the photographs i've taken of my work and actually watch it progress. i made something! so, we started with the chunks of tree from the two trees my dad cut down for me. and i just looked and realize that i never posted about it! i posted some photos on flickr, but never on here. i think that would be good to do.

so, this is the first bowl in a series of them that i am making for my woodshop class. i'm taking the wood from my home and hand turning it on the lathe into a bowl. a receptacle. i'm kind of taking the concept of home and its meaning for me. which is largely a receptacle for memories and love and my growing up and my life. it still holds me there, despite the fact that i am not living there anymore. so, bowls.

since i'm turning these green (not dried yet, still full of moisture), i have to keep them in plastic bags and let them dry slowly before i can finish them (sanding, treating, etc.). i just want to make it beautiful right now! as it dries, it will warp and maybe crack. that's why i'm turning it green. i did a ton of research looking up other bowl that were turned green and the warping can be so beautiful. i just hope that any cracks that form don't crack the bowl in half. there's already a crack in this bowl, as you can see. the crack is from the carving process. when i carved out the inside, the friction produced heat, so the inside started drying out while the outside was still more wet. boo. oh well, i like it if it doesn't break.

P.S. the chunk of wood on the bottom that doesn't look like part of a bowl... isn't. it's just the part of the wood that has screws drilled into it (to attach it to the piece that i put on the lathe), so i can't turn there unless i want my chisel to collide with metal screws. ouch!!

it will be a bowl shape, plain and simple like the antique dough bowls i was inspired by, but it'll have a little foot and such. we'll see.

can't wait to start on my next one!

p.s. i need this bag

via simple song

readymade

Tomorrow, as part of CCS's Toyota Lecture series, Stephen Burks is coming to lecture. Within the Toyota series, the lecturer is required to have an informal discussion or critique with some of the students. The last lecturer, I think, chose Industrial Design students as his informal audience. Well, Stephen has decided that he would like to talk to Crafts students, particularly Fiber Design and Furniture Design. That's me! So, in order for me to sound/look intelligent tomorrow when we're all sitting around a table together, I'm doing my homework and looking him up. He's really well known in Europe, but not so much here. I hadn't even heard of him before I found out about this lecture.

His website isn't very helpful, to be honest. But, I found a good New York Times article that gives me some insight about his design goals, methods, etc. His studio is in New York City, but he has started to do a lot of collaboration with artisans in third world countries. As far as I know, his studio still does all of the design work, but they then work with people in poor countries to make their products by hand.

In the middle of a lecture he just gave on Oct. 29th at the University of Michigan's Taubman school, he talks a lot about collaboration and authorship. About how these days sole authorship is kind of being fizzled out in favor of collaboration and artisan sourcing similar to what he does. I agree to a certain extent. Some areas of the design world are seeing this happen, and I think it's great. He talked about having conversations with friends in other disciplines, and I think applied it to this concept of shared authorship. It's definitely something to think about.

This makes me wonder what he has to say about the role that the internet plays in all of this. I look at collaborations like Nora and Theresa's Pause for Breath project, Heather and Jen's Inspired project, and others like them. Each artist is creating something their own, but putting into the context of the other's creation, or in the case of Heather of Jen, reacting to the other's work and creating something that they wouldn't have been inspired to create otherwise. The internet is enabling people who never would have met and who probably would never have seen each other's work to connect and to be inspired.

I think that I will ponder this overnight and in the morning and maybe bring something related up in the discussion. I have no idea what the discussion/personal lecture will be like. Will he start talking about his work and stuff and then let us ask him questions? I hope he doesn't just say, Alright guys, ask me questions! Who would do that, anyway?

Do you have anything you would like me to ask him on behalf of yourself? The more questions I ask, the more intelligent and knowledgeable I look! Let's collaborate on questions :)

more lines

here are the in-person photos. opinions?

i appreciate everyone who's commented so far. thanks so much for all of the feedback!

i've replied to everyone under the comments of the last post, so if you didn't get my reply yet, check it out, because i said something to everyone :)

lines

this is the first finished image for my senior show in may. in the shortest explanation possible, i am exploring and recreating humanity's impact on the landscape. here, it is our impact on the skyline. mostly for visual reasons, i'm preferring open, liney shapes more than bulky shapes like buildings.

i printed this out on tuesday onto silk organza. each image is 48"x18". i'm not really sure if i like it on the organza. transparency is really important to me, so that each image can interact with the other images (they'll be installed throughout space, not on the wall). but, if they're too transparent, each one won't have its own space.... urgh!

next image will be a radio tower.

oh, and i'm taking the background photographs with slide film and scanning them in to work on them in photoshop. i love working with film again, it feels so good.

.arashi.

this has to be one of my favorite patterns so far this year. i really love it. and i don't often say that about stuff that i make/design. i can see this as a linen table runner on a beautiful antique farm dining table. or as a border on gorgeous linen bedding.

where do you see it?

do you like it?

.progress.

working on my senior thesis. these will be printed on silk organza with the inkjet printer. the white parts (untouched by ink) will be stitched over with white thread (i may add subtle color, haven't decided yet, would love your thoughts). i think i'll end up stitching multiple rows of simple running stitch within each path/shape. eventually i'll do a whole post on the meaning/theory/concept behind it and what has inspired me all of that, but i need to put it all into writing first.