Ipek in London

Ipek Cav is a design student from Boston, MA. She went to London in Spring 2012 for a week with a class and fell in love. Now she is back in the city for a semester studying design at Central Saint Martin's School of Art & Design. You can check out my personal tumblr here.

[ipekinlondon]

Hey so what if

I applied to be an API peer mentor and then got the job and a letter of recommendation from API and then went into an international education career?

[ipekinlondon]

wait, can you post a png of that? haha xP

Oh yah bb. 

[ipekinlondon]

But actually what am I working on right now?

[ipekinlondon]

Here are the final 3 portraits I have edited for my Portrait brief.

[ipekinlondon]

Reasons I am currently frustrated with my life:

I have a fever

Everything is due in 2 days

Studio workshops are not open on the weekends

I miss AIB

It is a probability that I will miss the Wales trip

[ipekinlondon]

What I like about this speculation is that it begins to explain why the feeling of beauty is useful. The aesthetic emotion might have begun as a cognitive signal telling us to keep on looking, because there is a pattern here that we can figure out it. In other words, it’s a sort of a metacognitive hunch, a response to complexity that isn’t incomprehensible. Although we can’t quite decipher this sensation – and it doesn’t matter if the sensation is a painting or a symphony – the beauty keeps us from looking away, tickling those dopaminergic neurons and dorsal hairs. Like curiosity, beauty is a motivational force, an emotional reaction not to the perfect or the complete, but to the imperfect and incomplete. We know just enough to know that we want to know more; there is something here, we just don’t what. That’s why we call it beautiful.

Jonah Lehrer, "Why Does Beauty Exist?"

[ipekinlondon]

An article by Wired that explores why humans find things beautiful and our reaction to beautiful objects in the brain.

[ipekinlondon]

Art therapy is a mental health profession that uses the creative process of art making to improve and enhance the physical, mental and emotional well-being of individuals of all ages. It is based on the belief that the creative process involved in artistic self-expression helps people to resolve conflicts and problems, develop interpersonal skills, manage behaviour, reduce stress, increase self-esteem and self-awareness, and achieve insight. Art therapy integrates the fields of human development, visual art (drawing, painting, sculpture, and other art forms), and the creative process with models of counseling and psychotherapy.

American Art Therapy Association

[ipekinlondon]

Art therapy is the therapeutic use of art making, within a professional relationship, by people who experience illness, trauma or challenges in living, and by people who seek personal development. Through creating art and reflecting on the art products and processes, people can increase awareness of self and others cope with symptoms, stress and traumatic experiences; enhance cognitive abilities; and enjoy the life-affirming pleasures of making art.

American Art Therapy Association

[ipekinlondon]

Art therapy is a form of psychotherapy that uses art media as its primary mode of communication. It is practised by qualified, registered Art Therapists who work with children, young people, adults and the elderly.[3] Clients who can use art therapy may have a wide range of difficulties, disabilities or diagnoses. These include, for example, emotional, behavioral or mental health problems, learning or physical disabilities, life-limiting conditions, brain-injury or neurological conditions and physical illness. Art therapy may be provided for groups, or for individuals, depending on clients’ needs. It is not a recreational activity or an art lesson, although the sessions can be enjoyable. Clients do not need to have any previous experience or expertise in art.

British Association of Art Therapists

[astorelli]

We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.

[ipekinlondon]

Why is that we humans stay alive for poetry, beauty, romance and love? Why is that functionality isn't quite enough for us? What is it about the decorative that we are so attached to and why do we find it therapeutic?

[ipekinlondon]

Guess who went to WAH and got Lana Del Ray nails?!

[ipekinlondon]

I am preaching to the aristocrat. I tolerate ornaments on my own body, when they constitute the joy of my fellow men. Then they are my joy too. I can tolerate the ornaments of the Kaffir, the Persian, the Slovak peasant woman, my shoemaker's ornaments, for they all have no other way of attaining the high points of their existence.

Adolf Loos, Ornament and Crime

An example of the overt classism in Loos' text, he is making the lack of ornament out to be an invention or luxury of educated man and educated man alone. If everyone can't agree then it isn't a universal truth, asshole.

[ipekinlondon]

Some thoughts on Adolf Loos' "Ornament & Crime"

Adolf Loos, an architect of the late 1800's, knows that the future of intellectual design is minimalist. In his essay Ornament and Crime he discusses how decoration is a mere physical enjoyment created by a prehistoric man, essentially calling all fine art an erotic expression of man's innermost desires. It's really difficult for me to understand what Loos is actually saying because he is extremely sexist, classist, racist and ageist. But I digress.

What Loos' essay is actually making me question is less about the function of decorative design but about the function of fine art. Does it serve a purpose? What is fine art meant to be to us, other than something pleasing to eye? Contemporary artists are spitting at this idea, conceptual art is all about provoking others to think about something they hadn't thought of before. But is being thought-provoking enough of a function for us designers? We want results, we want change, we are a call to arms. Is fine art enough for us?

As a designer, I have a hard time allowing myself to find beauty in things that aren't functional. Things that are sexy to me include (but are not limited to): super readable type that's eye-catching, when a chair made of metal is comfortable to sit in, when a door has a handle on the pull-side and no handle on the push-side, etc, etc. But I'm not sure if I am denying myself life's simplest pleasures. So what if a door has handles on both sides, it's made of glass and the symmetry is beautiful.

Anything can be justified in design if you think about it long enough. This brief's question, Can decoration be functional?, will be an interesting exploration of whether or not I can justify it in my own work.

[ipekinlondon]

Help

Can't focus on work My brain's going to explode I'm gonna fail school

[ipekcav]

All I want to eat nowadays is asian food.

Also I am going to Loving Hut in a couple hours for the most delicious soy protein and fried rice ever……….

[ipekinlondon]

Here are some photographs from my weekend in Belfast that I shot, processed and developed all by myself :3