Final Project

For my final project, I found the theme of "Progress" to be very associated with my Archaeology major. Through such rapid evolution that humans have endured, we have become out of balance with the earth. Technology has enhanced our culture beyond where we should be compared to the pattern that we had been following in the normal evolutionary change. The last 100 years have made so much "progress" that we are completely out of wack with our universe. An interesting topic that comes up in archaeology is our characteristics that we have that have developed from adaptations throughout our histories. More specifically, we see that humans are typically scared of spiders. Why is this? What from our past made us internally frightened by the bug? There is no logical explanation from our current living to be more frightened of such a small creature than we are of a large vehicle. For our current situation in life and current placement in the evolutionary scale, this does not fit. This shows that in our past as human beings, there was some reason to be logically frightened of spiders because they had caused us some damaging effects. Since we progressed so quickly, our internal adaptations are not caught up with us. So we remain afraid of spiders instead of what should technically scare us in the world that we live in.

On this note, I used all metal kinds of material for this project and made it based on the "King Kong" image of some magnificent creature trampling the city while everyone flees in fright. I used a giant spider in the gorillas place to represent the irrational fear of spiders that we have as a culture. The metal signifies the technological advancements that has made progress used simultaneously with infrastructure. The growing skyscrapers continue to lead us into this unbalanced state and further from our internal adaptations. 

Project Five: Weaving

This short weaving project was at first difficult to try to come up with something original. I found an empty vase and thought that it may look cool to decorate it in weaves as a decoration. I chose the material thinking that I wanted it to look whimsical and like the ocean. The material ended up blending together so that the 50/50 weaving just turned out to look like I had simply wrapped it in the material. My weaving work was completely undefined. The decoration also didn't turn out how I liked, so I had to change the figure to a bird with bubble wrap. This made me happier with the piece, but I still may go back and make some of the weaving features more identifiable.

Project Four: Chair

The chair project was interesting. I received the chair and remember thinking how incomplete it was. It had twelve short pieces of wood holding it together as a base, but there was no seat. I tried to use one as a seat for class one day that there weren't anymore available stools. It was extremely uncomfortable and I thought how useless it was as itself; a chair's main purpose is to provide a seat, and this was not being fulfilled. So I chopped it up....I thought about it as getting a gift from a significant other and then returning it as useless as it came with the same material first making it up when it was a complete form. I printed "return to sender" on it because that is what I would be thinking if I was so unhappy with the useless form of a seatless chair.

Project Three: Transformation

My forks, spoons, and knives project was inspired by my childhood. Camping was always my favorite activity, and growing up by the campfire and being experimenting little pyromaniacs reminded me of the flexibility of plastic silverware. I loved to watch the shapes and transformation process that the plastic would go through as it reacted to the heat of the fire. When I started this project, I didn't expect for it to turn out quite as well as it did. I let the shapes form without molding the warm and melting plastic. This made the flower shapes turn out more organically and less manipulated. If I were to make changes to this project, I would have made more of the flowers and combined them into a shrub-like structure with lights in the middle. I still plan to do this when I get a few extra moments of free time. This was by far my favorite project.

Project #2: Darkness

The darkness podcast that we listened to in class inspired part of this project. I connected the transformation and darkness themes. I used darkness in this piece with a contradiction of bright colors to represent loneliness, which usually accompanies darkness. It is the burden of the individual that can sometimes create the darkness of this feeling. The podcast inspired this because I thought about what it would be like in complete darkness and then to see the sight that he did looking down at earth. It must have been one of his greatest experiences but the moment is so limited to himself that it is hard to relate the story to someone else besides through his stories. This makes him know more than the average person and standout but in a bit of a lonely spot. That is the cost of being an individual. The contrast shows the beauty of the situation as well as how it separates the individual from the rest.

Project Four: Open Ended

For my fourth project, I was having trouble coming up with something off the top of my head. I began thinking of how I could use characteristic from past work and incorporate that into this piece. I still was drawing blanks, so I thought of what materials I would use. I landed on fabric because it was quick and accessible. The entire concept that I developed next was based off the unseen. It represented an imaginary window with the wind slightly blowing.. Wind is invisible and yet it i felt by everyone. What other concepts share this feature?? If I could change the presentation, I would figure out a better position for hanging it so that it looked like one half was blowing naturally in the breeze. I would also get some lights behind it perhaps. It is missing something that I have yet to figure out. I liked the concept it was developing, but I need  something to add that would better convey this message.

Summary of Project One

Overall, I saw progress as I attempted each medium a few times. If I were to start all over again, I would have chosen a completely different idea. I didn't realize what possible constraints may come after the original clay mold was produced. I definitely had the least amount of passion and patience with the plaster. However, I enjoyed trying out different mediums for the positives. I would like to work with the paper again because I like the look it produces. Paper was what I was looking forward to working with when we were first beginning; wax was as well. The process was a good learning experience but it really tested my patience.