Thursday, December 17, 2009

.rice.



i like this pattern. i will soon do a full post about my final project in pattern design - it was one that i really loved and put a lot of thought to and am pretty passionate about - but for now, this will have to do.

rice. in its plant form.






p.s. i love the faunts.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

.thought.

Ok, so, you know that moment
that very moment when the city lights turn on
or the highway lights
at that threshold between day and night
the transition
well, today i witnessed that moment. i always have thought of that moment as a treat. there's no way i can plan it. i am just in that place in that time. i was walking to the woodshop at school and when i walked under part of the kresge building, just as i walked underneath it, the lights turned on above my head. do other people notice these things? they must...

it's weird, but i smiled to myself.


the more i think about it and the more i talk to people about it, the more nervous i am to graduate and to actually leave ccs. yeah, i'm really really mad at the school. they've screwed a lot of things up for us students this year, but that's a different story. and really, an old, tired one.

so, the reason i'm nervous to leave is this: community. if you read here or if you know me in "real life" (or whatever you want to call it) you know how i feel about this word and what it means. having a community around me, whether it is online or in "real life", is so so important. ccs is the best community i have. sometimes i forget, like when people trash the fiber studio. but, when i walk around and see art hanging from trees or am surprised when i walk into the walter b. (totally forgot today was dec. graduation) and see art all over the place and recognize a photograph by my friend... i really feel it. my guess is that there's nothing quite like being a student in a small, like-minded (for the most part) school.

i just really love walking around on an errand, but being continually sidetracked. i had to stop in the yamasaki atrium to study the ceramics on display from a critique. just being in a place where so many people make art is such a good feeling...

how do you get that after school?

my plan is to work there.

Monday, December 14, 2009

.monday.



today is my last session of both pattern design and woodworking.

Sunday, December 6, 2009

.room.

these are all photos that i've taken from countryliving.com as inspiration for my final pattern design assignment. we have to create five patterns made specifically to go into a room of our design. i'm really excited about it. country living's website has a ton of awesome house tours, you should check it out!


i have a special affinity for pie safes. my parents have one in our house and i love it. also, ceramic crocks. i covet them. actually, i love pretty much everything about this photo. the chair, the tub, the ticking on the bed, the windows... love.

the peaches and the wood beam are my main inspirers here. also, i like that tiling. i love old wood beams.

whisks are really great tools. they look awesome and they do such a good job. i love this collection of antique/vintage whisks. maybe i'll do a pattern or two of kitchen implements...

i like the chandelier, but what i really like about this image is the giant bowl on the table.

ceramic and wood together. probably my two favorite materials, besides fabric/textiles.

i take the garlands and the sink/cabinet as inspiration here. also, i like the giant watermelon in the sink. i love chippy paint!



the room i chose is the kitchen/dining room. i'm lumping them together because i want to do stuff from both rooms. that's a pretty good reason, right? anyway, my theme or inspiration or whatever you want to call it is... i guess maybe slow living. i'm emphasizing a connection to food in its plant state. also, i think the table linen patterns will be images of fruits and veggies themselves. all of the materials in the room are natural. i'm designing patterns for food storage containers that will be ceramic. all of the table linens will be just that - linen. oh, how i miss linen.


Saturday, December 5, 2009

.two.



this is the second image ready for my show. i'll be printing it this week. the color balance is off. matt, what do you think i need to correct it? i'm trying to get started on a water series, too. i thought i had a breakthrough, but now i feel stuck again. geez.

my winter review is on thursday (found out about this a week ago), so i'm working on my second sky image tonight and tomorrow. hopefully i can print that out on monday or tuesday. oh, and i may print out a water one that i'm thinking about just to have it and for some feedback.

what do you think?

Thursday, December 3, 2009

.writing.


tonight, i am writing a paper for my philosophy class. the topic really excites me, and i love talking/thinking about these concepts (had a great lunch with mike (check out his blog!) in order to collect our thoughts), but man is it hard. the more i think about it, the more art cannot be defined. we have to take the three philosophical theories of art and explain which is most accurate. my argument is that none of them are accurate on their own, they must have each other to fully define art. but, there is still this unknown factor, the fact that each individual recognizes art differently, no matter how much or how little they know. there is still that gut reaction.

i'm using picasso's "la guernica" as an example in one of my paragraphs. i love this painting, it reaches out on a soul level. i would love to see it in person, but sadly for me, it is in spain. i do hope to go there someday anyway!

pbs has a good description of the background of the painting and its history here. definitely worth reading.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

.home.













i don't really have a lot of time, so i won't caption each photo. i think most of them are pretty self-explanatory anyway; hope you do too :) but, i wanted to make sure to tell you that my dad wasn't after the chickens, he was on his way to his tree stand to hunt deer. doesn't his hunting suit look cozy?

my mom's chickens are getting so big! the two that look bigger and different are two of the original chicks that she bought in may. the black and white one is badger, a silver laced wyandotte. the one with the crazy cheek feathers in the last photo (that was taken just before she pecked my finger! jerk!) is olga, an araucana. she'll lay blue/green eggs! the other three chickens are younger and they are isa reds, i think. badger and olga roost on the totem pole!

Tuesday, November 24, 2009

.nebulous.



sunday morning looked like this. you can't tell, but this is dt plymouth, on my way to work! it was beautiful, i love the fog.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

.odegard ii.



i should have included this image in the last post. this is the design i painted earlier for my pattern design class. i based my odegard design on this one. it's pretty much the same one, just bigger and green/white.

.odegard.

mixing the lumadyes. i love this paint. it's liquid watercolor, so it's completely transparent.


progress...

i really like how the boundaries are transcended by the paint. it looks so soft and adds another layer of interest.


starting to add the "stitches".



this is the pattern that i painted for the odegard rug design competition. i adapted it from the embroidery pattern that i did for my class earlier this semester. i can't actually show you the final piece, though. the rules of the competition explicitly say that i can't publish my design until the winners have been announced. if i'm a winner, i can't publish it until after the award ceremony in april or may! geez, odegard, way to cramp my style.

so, here's the partially finished version. this painting was 12"x18", the biggest i've ever painted. and let me tell you, it was hard to paint this big! even though it was just lines. and the thing about painting is... you can't really fix anything. at least not in a design like this one. it's there forever. i can cringe all i want (and oh, did i cringe), but it's not going anywhere.

you should really check out the odegard link i gave you up there. it takes you to their rug design gallery. stephanie odegard, the head designer and owner, is an amazing designer. i love almost all of the designs!

Thursday, November 19, 2009

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!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009


p.s. i need this bag


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 :)

Friday, November 13, 2009

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 :)

Thursday, November 12, 2009

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.

Friday, October 30, 2009

.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?

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

.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.