ashlin fox

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Amazing Things 5.5

I don’t mean to sound cliché, but to be honest my experience as a first year in general is an amazing thing that I will never forget. So many lessons were learned. Mostly time management, but even bigger lessons such as don’t come into studio with a poorly crafted...anything (thank you Hansjörg) and don’t spend too much time in studio or you’ll start to go crazy and probably cut yourself. I’ve grown so close to almost everyone in my year and I love them more than I ever thought I would. 

Most of all though, throughout this year I have fallen in love with architecture. I came in not entirely sure what to think of Brian Ambroziak talking about how a building is poetic (frankly at first I wasn’t sure if I ever would understand him sober...), but at the start of second semester, I looked forward most to coming into 102 and listening to his lectures. I hope that CoAD keeps this curriculum for years to come. If not, I fear that there are going to be students who come in and severely miss out on falling in love with their future profession. Without this class, I don’t think that I could look at architecture the same way. There is beauty in buildings.

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Amazing Things 5.4

High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia.

March 6, 2015

We stepped inside of a Richard Meier and Renzo Piano museum to look at famous artists’ pieces. While one floor was closed to visitors, the remaining floors were sufficient enough to fully amaze me.

I had been to museums before, but I had in a way took them for granted. Walking around and being about to recognize who the artist was in addition to knowing the background and meaning of the piece before reading the information card is what made the trip most enjoyable. 

Frank Lloyd Wright. Seeing the actual works of art hanging on the wall we discussed in class made me feel as though I was seeing something different from what I would have seen just one year ago. 

Going on this trip made me realize just how much I have learned. It made me realized that this program really does change the way we look at things and how our eyes communicate with our minds. 

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Amazing Things 5.3

Finding a place where you can belong and truly be yourself is one of the most important things I think anyone could ever accomplish. 

Since I was three, I have taken dance lessons. My last competition and my last performance with my studio back home was tearful and I was afraid I would never find a home where I could express myself more honestly than with those girls in class and on stage. However, when I came to UT in the fall, I auditioned for the dance company, BOSS. In just a few short months, I had a new family of strong ladies and beautiful dancers. January I had my first performance with them in Clarence Brown Theater.  Three long consecutive nights of shows reminded me that dance will always be an “amazing thing” no matter where I am or who I’m with. 

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Wanna be inspired? Watch this blind man paint!

If you ever get the feeling that there's something you can't do, you probably ought to watch this video! John Bramblitt.

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an aperture

An aperture is more than solely a window. A window is more than a view through walls and a passage for light. It’s a portal separating the inner from the outer while simultaneously connecting the two. Andrew Wyeth’s “Wind from the Sea,” shows the inner and outer connected. A dimly lit deteriorating attic window with frayed flowing lace curtains allows small birds to fly inside. Two worn tire tracks lead to the distant sea and beyond the bright field is a forested area. The cropped frame puts the viewer inside the lonely house in Maine and lets you feel the wind.

Robert Frost’s poem about a bedside window similarly resembles many of the windows painted by Andrew Wyeth. 

“Tree at my window, window tree, My sash is lowered when night comes on; But let there never be curtain drawn Between you and me. And thing next most diffuse to cloud, Not all your light tongues talking aloud Could be profound. And if you have seen me when I slept, You have seen me when I was taken and swept And all but lost. Fate had her imagination about her, Your head so much concerned with outer, Mine with inner, weather.” Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground, But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed, That day she put our heads together” --Robert Frost

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peaches and paint

It’s interesting to think that we’ve seen since our eyes have been open, but we haven’t always understood what we’re seeing. A peach has always been a peach, but eighteen years ago, a peach was no different from a fuzzy, yellow ball. “I’ve been around for too long. Form is condemned to an eternal danse macabre with meaning: I couldn’t unpeach the peaches. Nor can I remember ever having seen without understanding….” The privilege of the unknown is lost with time and experience.

However, with time and experience, there is an evolution of the mind that works to our advantage. Technologies have been developed that have changed the realm of seeing entirely. The camera obscura, the invention of lighting, premixed paints, and the easel forever changed the world of art. Stories became intensified and artists gained the ability to make complex visual arguments. Monet took advantage of this technology to not only paint beautiful works, but to take it one step further by creating the space between the motif and the viewer. He emphasized the atmosphere between the eye and the painting. It’s a cold atmosphere that demands a gasp for air and a skipped heartbeat.

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March 31, 2015.

Taps of heels match the strummed rhythm, 

Clapping and cheers are in accordance with sharp movements,

A dimly lit space highlights the white flowing weight.

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[AR]chi[T]ecture

“Poetry and architecture are not just contingent analoguesfor Hejduk. They are both building arts. They are ontologically the same art…”John Hejduk, an architect, educator and artist established in New York, puts physically visible objects into words. These words are poetic expressions of the inconspicuous beauty that lies within all forms of artwork. His poems give life to inanimate objects such as sculptures, buildings, photographs, and paintings. The Annunciation was painted with the illiterate medieval intellect in mind; Hejduk’s written description was composed as easily perceivable as the painting. The sixteen lines paint a mental image.

What is most beautiful about poetry and writing in general to me is the endless possibility of imagery. While everyone will interpret each piece of writing differently, the overall imagery will inevitably be similar. The writer is an artist in that sense.

“If a building becomes architecture, then it is art.” —Arne Jacobsen

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Amazing Things 5.2: Mt. LeConte

To live on the trail amongst the deer, trees, and dirt is a dream of mine. Time spent in nature is never time wasted. Raised by an Eagle Scout and forced to do the same things as three brothers, I have come to love getting covered in mud, falling into creeks, and walking up mountains more than anything else.

“More and more people are discovering a desire for them, and a powerful solace in them. At bottom, mountains, like all wildernesses, challenge our complacent conviction - so easy to lapse into - that the world has been made for humans by humans. Most of us exist for most of the time in worlds which are humanly arranged, themed and controlled. One forgets that there are environments which do not respond to the flick of a switch or the twist of a dial, and which have their own rhythms and orders of existence. Mountains correct this amnesia. By speaking of greater forces than we can possibly invoke, and by confronting us with greater spans of time than we can possibly envisage, mountains refute our excessive trust in the man-made. They pose profound questions about our durability and the importance of our schemes. They induce, I suppose, a modesty in us.” --Robert Macfarlane.

What’s important to me is what humanity can gain from nature, not always what we can add to it. I’m always reminded of that when I’m on what feels like the top of the world. The connection back to nature, back to life without cell phones and other technology that disconnects us from living in the moment is what I love most.

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Amazing Things 5.1

The Knoxville Symphony Orchestra 

An inspirational night served as a reminder to the beauty I was once capable of creating. Sitting in awe of the talent, I remembered what it felt like to be on stage with my second family. 

Having the right amount of imperfection created a chilling perfection. Dissonance is suspenseful, but the second number was stressful--like a psycho film. The cello concerto was indescribable. Her arms moved as though God was playing puppeteer for the evening.

Intermission lead to adventures of the Tennessee Theater. A walk back in time kept a smile on my face.

Forty-four short minutes of Tchaikovsky followed and ended the symphony. 

When I was regularly able to play music, it was one of my purest forms of expression. Hearing the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra reminded me that making music was missing from me. Reading music, a second language, and playing more than just what’s written on a page is one of my favorite things that is slowly slipping away from my life. I’m thankful for those who perform throughout their lives for others.

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http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/478488/La-Jetee-Movie-Clip-The-Man-Doesn-t-Die.html

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“Nothing tells memories from ordinary moments. Only afterwards do they claim remembrance on account of their scars.”

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/478511/La-Jetee-Movie-Clip-World-War-Three.html

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5' 6''

A difference in perspective can change every thing entirely. In an aerial view from thirty thousand feet, one gets a quantitative sense of the land. Voids between the structures look wide. Buildings seem to have no height. The topography appears level.

Eye level is where we get lost. Lost in the qualitative sense of the spaces within the site. Zooming in, senses are more active. Initially, sight takes charge. On an apparent hill, there is a grassy space framed by sidewalk lined with benches. People actively fill the land. After moving past the sidewalk, there is a second boarder. There are cars whizzing through. Peering down between the gap the two buildings create, I feel as though I can reach each exterior wall.  

In Steven Holl’s words, “the way spaces feel, the sound and smell of these places, has equal weight to the way things look.”

The sound of the HVAC units adds a constant humming to the calm breeze that blows the tri-toned flag. Voices draw me to where life is centered. Following the stairs down to another, lower elevation of the site, there is a strong, pungent scent that encompasses the air. Water stands stagnant in what seems to be a neglected area. Standing beside a legendary stadium makes me feel small; however it also is a location that lacks attention. This space feels old and lost in time, as though its only importance is as a passageway that refuses to demand attention from anyone other than mantence workers.

The difference between thirty thousand feet and five feet, six inches has never seemed so great.

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[ad]vantage points

The far eastern boarder of campus is a less traveled destination for most students today. This site comes to life most when students walk to classes on the hill in the daylight, drive on the road most often light by the sun, and when pedestrians attend events and must enter through the northern gates of Neyland Stadium during the sweltering early days to the chilled nights of fall.

Pedestrians and those who travel by car and bike are guided on a predetermined surface. This directs users to structures and parking lots. The landscape is less predominate than the structures, which are less than the roads and sidewalks suggesting that there is greater importance on travel.

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Charlotte Maxine Edward

mildew and moth balls

old furniture covered in bed sheets

lamp shades still in the plastic

duct tape patched leather

a multitude of broken crayons

that one brand of cigarettes

paneled walls and soiled carpet

a deck with loose rusty nails

carrots and brown sugar on the stove

over grown lawn and a broken chain linked fence

the room I was terrified of

wall phones with coiled cords

Thursdays smell like the memory. I could never forget how that smell looks. It seemed so simple and so calm. Riding mattresses down broken a stairwell to land in a pile of the alphabet. Sitting on the last piece of perfection.

There's a pristine image in my mind that reflects the memories. Much like Rothko Dash, the image is dark, happy, simple.

Holding a fat bear watching her embroider a quilt trying to repeat every action in crayon to a tee with a completely different product. I was never satisfied with what I made. She would tack it to the wall. "This is the best one yet." 

I would give anything to have it again; again in any form. I could see time move slowly out the half windows. As slowly as she circled the hidden words. Time moves too quickly and I can’t see where it’s going. I wish someone would have told me to be more thankful for the time I had then.