Drawing Challenge #1

The prompt was simple: draw on an object. Illustrate impermanence.

I hoped to make this project more interactive and the opportunity nearly presented itself. A group of friends planned to come over to the house; we would all finally be reunited after missing each other in semesters abroad and internships drawing us apart in the summer months.

Time with friends is impermanent and the moments appreciated.

As we're apt to do, my housemate and I planned desserts and drinks for the night. I took this opportunity to involve my friends in the project and pay them tribute in the process.

The idea was this: draw in chocolate ganache on a sheet of blondies the outlines of the nations or states that have claimed my friends' time and affection. This could be a semester abroad experience, an internship location, or a dream travel destination.

Represented, we had: Israel, Turkey, Alabama, France (2), Spain, Hungary, England, and Italy. Our Armenian friend was included in the empty blondie space next to his girlfriend's Spain, since he doesn't like chocolate... Friendly personal jabs acceptable.

Finished!

The interactive part. When everyone had arrived, the friends gathered 'round and were instructed to find their piece and carve it out. To illustrate impermanence, they played their part and consumed the cookie. Deliciously straightforward.

Art is impermanent. It consists of process and product. The process is action and acts are temporary. The consumption of the product (if there is one) is also an action, and a fleeting one. But the impressions it has on emotions last. I wanted the drawing to be quickly demolished but the feeling of recognition to persist in these friends. This undergirding thought process directed the project, but it wasn't necessary to communicate. Light-heartedness gets the point across just as succinctly.

Bon Appétit!

The End.

Exploring Space 

This project prompted me to look at the places and spaces around me as fodder for inspiration. Instead of letting environments surprise me, I started searching. 

One peripheral environment transformed before me.

Six days a week my life takes place among peers and professors. But Friday I spend my mornings and afternoons babysitting a two year-old at the polo club. It's a detachment for me mentally and physically. A different kind of exhaustion. And making art transforms from my Major discipline to my strategic for whiling away time with the little one.

Time flits by when I focus his attention through tactile, mark-making means. And it distills as I take him on a walk him in and around the condo complex. It reminds me of a maze; strolling through angular footpaths, getting lost in my thoughts. Apartness quiets the week's incessant mental checklist. It's a meditative place. It feels a bit like I'm Alice slipping down the rabbit hole. Birds of paradise, children's games, storybooks, winding pathways.. the details give it a dreamy quality.

Stage 1: Documenting the details with photos.

Stage 2: Transposing the photos onto transparencies. 

Overlapping transparent ink drawings reinterprets the space further. It focuses my mind once more on this place, this time through line. A different sensory experience. 

Stage 3: Convergence.

Pathways become dominant and the act of strolling down them becomes the narrative for my arrangement.

Stage 4: Installation.

The class critique traveled just outside the room to the shadowy-purple wall by the stone stairs. The stand-in for the stucco steps I'd toddle the two-year up. The purple offsets the yellow tones of the board nicely as well. I like playing the opposites together. Just like the linear architecture and curvilinear designs on Fridays.