Just Process n Things

Mixed media artist in school figuring things out

[hanastudio]

Midterm portfolio check...

I do think my washi is more developed of a process than my moku hanga however I’m taking this as a learning experience

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Just some more paper making processes.

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American Pokeberries found behind my school’s building. This plants exists year long but only makes its berries in the summer and early fall. Always been really interested in natural dye so let’s see what fruit this bares.

[hanastudio]

The inside and the outside. What labors do we go through to create what we intend and what same labors create something that was not even in our thought process to begin with? Creating this work cost me more time, effort and reflection than any other work I have made, what with having to retract myself to embroider on YouTube and going back and forth to fabric stores. While I was stuffing my pillow, I realized that I didn’t have enough. I looked around my dorm to see what I could find. A Michigan t shirt, a fleece that I wore all winter, and some scraps from a friend’s past project. These were what filled my love’s labor.

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The lyrics of a lullaby my grandmother had written when I was a baby. My aunt sent a picture of a page from her handwritten journal, where she first jotted down the words. Reading this, I forgot about a very underrated but integral part of sleeping as child. As she wrote this song, I take the labor to make this pillow and to think of her, the woman who taught me to sew.

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From a few weeks ago when I first started my mapping project in the comfort of my dorm. Since then what I’ve wanted to communicate with this project has evolved and changed in a way that I didn’t expect but I like where it might take me.

[hanastudio]

Our body extension project was on certain elements and themes from Joyce Kilmer’s poem Trees, and Alan Bigelow’s This is not a Poem. We were inspired by the line “only God can make a tree” and the themes of power and influence. Along with that, Alan Bigelow’s “destruction” of Kilmer’s poem influenced our interest in the idea of creating something and then destroying it. The broader inspiration for our piece is humanity and its relationship to the earth. Humans are influenced by some higher being or God-like force that push and pull them to do certain things. Humanity also takes a uses resources provided by the earth which they then use to create magnificent things. There is also the element of destruction that is brought upon by humans in return. While human creations can be positive and innovative, they can also ruin the earth that they have built on and that they have taken the resources from.

[hanastudio]

I represent the earth, the Earth with a capital “E” and just the ground. This extension has a context in the greater narrative of our piece however this is also a body extension where craftsmanship is key. As I carried this weight on my shoulders, I had not realized just how heavy it would become once all the bricks were placed on top of my foundation. The octagon shape of my extension was made so that it could reflect the shape of the bricks as the resources from the earth are part of the earth. 

[hanastudio]

In the performance we each had a seperate roll to play with our extensions. Riley was the container that stored the bricks. I was the foundation that the bricks were built upon. These two extensions juxtapose each other as they both carry the bricks, the resources, at some point. Erin was the hook, that grabbed people into the piece whereas Julian destroyed what people had built onto the “foundation”. When we presented our piece, we decided to do so with a video rather than having a live performance. Although our video was successful, us standing at the sides of the screen as our piece played created a sort of anti-climactic response. In retrospect, we could have performed the piece as our video was playing, setting a timer for the audience to complete their task in. Another thing that we could have done that didn’t involve the audience directly, was set up our performance as it was in the video and stood stoically in the positions similar to the first shot of the video. This would have given the audience a sense of physical space we presented in the video, as well as add another layer to the viewing experience.

[erinwalskiart-blog]

Pictured here is my “Hook” body extension. It is an extension of my arm and has the function of hooking around people’s neck and directing/moving them to a desired location. 

Reflection:

My body extension came about as a result of my group and I’s reflections of Joyce Kilmer’s poem Trees, and This is not a Poem. We were interested in the ideas of power and influence, and construction and destruction. Our idea was to portray the influences and actions of humanity in our piece. Hana’s extension symbolized the earth. Riley’s extension represented the source of resources that we humans take and both create and destroy things with. Julian’s extension’s purpose was to destroy the creation that humanity built because there are always uncontrollable things that happen in the world that may not be positive. It also symbolizes the fact that humanity can create magnificent things on this earth but also can ruin it to the same extent. My extension was the controlling force in this story. The extension was built off of my arm with a circular hook at the end of it. Its function was to hook around a person’s head, or humanity in this metaphor, and direct them to the desired location (Riley’s shelf extension). My extension symbolized the higher force, or a God-like influence, that drives humanity. This was inspired by the line in Kilmer’s poem, “Only God can make a tree”.

[noonewasaroundtohearagain]

Body Extension Prototype

[erinwalskiart-blog]

A few mini prototypes for my hook arm body extension. I learned that the cone-shaped model is much more sturdy and more representative of the arm on which it will go. 

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A mini sculpture of a body extension made simply with paper and scotch tape

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Some quick ideations of our body extension project!

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A mini presentation about Rachel and mine’s project @rachelrettie

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Sequence Project: Final Reflection

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Our film short SUSPIRIUM garnered positive feedback when we presented our work on Tuesday. We were praised on our handling of traditional portrait photography, and were encouraged to explore Roman Polanski’s early work Knife in the Water, which incorporated similar approaches to drama in cinema. We felt successful in our portrayal of  paranoia in relation to Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible”. As women we personally related to the feeling of being watched and or followed. Our division and collaboration of certain aspects of the work was an approach we found to be constructive; for example, we divided up the work of sound and visual editing. Then, we met in person mid-process to share any thoughts or critiques. Overall, this project helped us break out of our comfort zone, letting us experiment with software, techniques and concepts of film and audio.

[hanastudio]

A compilation of photos that depict body extensions and politically incorrect photos.