BookStacks: Project 1 (Weather)
For this project, I started with the concepts of illustrated child books that built into the theme of weather. Slowly, I then went away from that idea and just thought of various ways to stack piles of books just so it would be pleasant to see, although forgetting the theme of weather in doing so. Afterward, I decided to incorporate the body with books themselves as we forget a structured material, such as a book, holds a humanized materialistic sensation even though a book is so mechanically made. I also thought about how a person’s body can depict the illustrations of the book through the weather itself, showing different seasons or adventures that reveal a consistent theme of weather. My whole process was a bit rethought after our library trip.
My ideas changed drastically and I leaned towards more minimalistic ideas, while still keeping a consistent theme that versus material and weather, which results in decay. Weather corrodes man-made material over time, such as a book, so the idea of corrosion “popped” in my head with the help of the artist Alexis Arnold who took basically “ruined” them by crystalizing their beauty with Borax. I decided to, overall, photoshoot playful pictures of books that are struggling to hold together to represent what weather can do to man-made material.
Alexis Arnold – Inspiration
Library PhotoShoot: Concept on Weather and Corrosion
The idea of Books and corrosion can be seen through old books struggling to hold together, with ripped edges, yellow pages, taped covers, weird stains, and lastly sinful holes. Here we can see the idea of books decaying through the natural cycle of man-made materials going back to it’s origin, the ground. Below, I also incorporated books that are held together by tape, showing the idea of plastic and decay.
Below is another playful concept on the notion of decay seen through such simple things as dust and dirt!
For the next below images, I tried to play with the idea of the blue sky with clouds during a more mucky evening, but I ended up changing the concept to a flock of birds using blue books rather than creating the sky. My idea at the time for these books was trying to make little clouds from the small white books and the bigger (blue-ish) books were the sky itself, but I scrapped the idea for something a bit more playful and interesting under “Update – Edited books”.
Update – Edited books
From a Blue sky with clouds to an idea of a flock of birds, above are 2 images: one with a lightened sky and another with a darkened sky of books in the form of a flock, but stacked together! (note: I need help with my images being blurry)
For the books above, I just played around for fun with colours and tried to experiment more with dust.
Nature Walk: Circles, The Sky & Weeds
Tim Knowles – Tree Drawings
Tim Knowles is an artist based from UK, London. He started a project series that he called “tree drawings” from 2007 – 2008 where he presented tree drawings on paper with ink. He said to have utilized “apparatuses, mechanisms, or systems beyond [his] control to introduce chance into the production of [his] art”. Below, are a few pictures, from the website:
https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/28/knowles.php,
which shows a series produced by trees, located in the Borrowdale and Buttermere areas of England’s Lake District. How Knowles created the project was by attaching sketching pens to the tree’s branches and then placing sheets of paper in the trees’ natural positions to capture the motions, in addition to the motion of stillness. I think wind had a huge aspect to his pieces and Tim probably selected a day of which the weather wasn’t as windy, but more steady, because of how clean and crisp the strokes were, that being always centered on his paper and not exceeding the boundaries, almost as if he still had intention into letting nature take its course where he was “the guiding hand”.
His drawings depicted, somewhat, signatures with each drawing having different qualities and characteristics through various sways in the breeze, that including: “the relaxed, fluid line of an oak; the delicate, tentative touch of a larch; a hawthorn’s stiff, slightly neurotic scratches”. Knowles also explains how “process” is important in his work, like how I’ve said before, where his canvases almost look purposely placed to get a centered penmanship. In the end, each of Knowles’ “Tree Drawings” are photographed or videoed, documenting the location as well as the manner of its creation.
Tim Knowles – The dynamics of drifting
Tim Knowles’ independent solo exhibit on “The dynamics of drifting” is ongoing. Knowles described this project as a journey or motion of drifting that includes inspirations through concepts of gravity and external forces that could also be influenced by people. The purpose of Knowles’ sailor boat project is to truly have no destination, where the wind takes the passenger on a journey of fate, through nature’s course. Below is just a prototype of his industrialized invention having “WTWB4” being an abbreviation for “where the wind blows”.
Knowles’ sailor boat reminds me of people who give in to fate and let mother nature or even destiny take her course, realizing we never had a choice for free will just the illusion that society gives us. The bare elements are what choose our fate, such as gravity, people, and other external forces. Although, Knowles somehow manages to create soothing works that seem to be very mellow and relaxing as his journey seems to be depicted as a slow steady stream, just like in his “Tree Drawings” series, having very manageable and “hand-guided” plans.
“‘Dynamics of Drifting’ presents a series of works that forge and record passages through land and water. Light, ink, water, and wind all travel and pivot on the meeting of human will and forces beyond our control: the direction and force of the wind, the flow of the water, and the pull of gravity.”
https://www.hestercombe.com/whats-on/dynamics-drifting-tim-knowles
Environmental Video
Above we have the interpretation of a kitty-cat’s paws in the wild, with the act of aggression and playfulness through the movements and characteristics of a cat. The playfulness of nature and the feat of the complementary glove against the vibrant green grass adds to a questionable nature scene. In the end, the audience overall sees a human’s nicely gloved hands acting as a cat in public! Throughout the video, the acts of curiosity, touch, and aggressive shaking of a tree branch show the nature of a cat and the blissful notion of a cat’s day.
Above are hands showing the contrasting movements of the soft touch of flowers and the roughness of concrete, rock, and wood. Here, there are two contrasting scenes showing the difference between the delicacy of nature and the harshness of stone and wood. A variety of movements are also shown throughout the video: punching, slapping, caressing/petting, and back-handing! Below are some snap-shoots of other playful videos that revolve around a ‘hand-shake’ and the game ‘rock, paper, scissors’.
As a group, we collectively produced our works together and decided to go with ASMR, but then slowly moved into the motive of playful hands! Below are examples of our past ASMR videos, but individually shown without editing:
Magazine – Birds
Experimenting with layouts and texts while specifically targeting the seagull bird species for this bird-based task!
Below are some of the final tests for the magazine, also having a bird influence. The final image can be seen fully and well cropped on a nice off-white background on the final product of the magazine.
Final Project: multiples – magazine
For this project, I decided to dedicate a magazine to rats. A magazine dedicated to glorifying and manifesting the notion of wanting a rat. The story behind the rat-influenced magazine is my past childhood memories and a slight rivalry against my mother for wanting/collecting rat statues. The magazine is also still in the process of arriving through the mail!
