dead or gelatin?

The people of Pompeii surprised in their sleep by the terrible ash, and immortalized in their coat of lava

Ash Production

Here it is; the charring process and its results- what beautiful ash!

Draft artist statement

ART522 Artist Statement
The shapes and reflections of gemstones in their crystalline form inspire my current work. I dissect their angular geometry into different layers made out of metal or clear acrylic. The resulting flat shapes are then reassembled and stacked up to produce new forms. Each layer is a slight variation of the other leading to rhythm around the edges while keeping the flat facet at the top. Some of the pieces remain as a single layer piece; others are formed with square wire allowing for play around the edges and contrasting with the solidity of the flat layers. All of them reflect on the depth and beauty of the original inspiration.

Responses

Each of my production pieces has been designed with attention to detail, from the simple pierced out rings to the multilayered ring bands with their layered acrylic disks. The colors of the acrylic are clear and subtle to allow for an interesting interplay at the edges. All lines display a clear geometry which is accented by the fact that it is ever so slightly irregular.

Inspiration

The world around me inspires me- this can be something I heard on the radio or something I see while walking down the street. This often leads to a certain shape which then represents the core theme of what I'm making. All pieces follow that initial theme and present themselves as variations. Then there are concepts I like to explore- these are somewhat different in as much as they reside within me and represent a condensation of life experiences, rather like something I might want to write a book about had I that talent. In fact, the development of one of those pieces often involves a sketch with a lot of writing about its current state to distill its essence which points to the direction it will morph into next. Although I see my work as constantly evolving there are certain features that remained constant: my pieces tend to have a evanescent quality to them, involving multiple solder points with 30 gauge wire or hairnet pieces formed with the mere whiff of a flame.

5 looooooooong sentences

Many different experiences with art, people, museums and monuments have helped to shape me as an artist and a human being. These range from the blue mosque in Istanbul with its calm and distant splendor to the serenity of the sculpture garden in Goodwood, England to movies like David Lynch's Mulholland Drive where time and place are blurred, and one is never exactly sure of the truth. One experience in particular remains with me though: the tombs in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor which at the time that I visited them were freely accessible to the visitor. Once inside one enters the quiet of the underworld from over 3000 years ago, passing through hieroglyph covered corridors that are leading deeper into the baking hot rock. It is absolutely quiet, and the mysterious walls provide a connection to humanity which is revealed not through exact deciphering of the text but through the dark and dreamlike atmosphere they create and the silence of death they speak of.

6 months later

Look at this amazing decay, six months to the day after its fresh and beautiful first appearance!

charred

A little exercise on charcoal.
In my exploration of materials that I may want to work with I came upon charcoal. It has such beautiful and deep blackness, and keeps the texture of its origin. One problem was immediately obvious:
It has a strong tendency to crumble! So I tried a variety of ways to aide its coherence: I covered it in epoxy resin which of course sticks the whole thing together but ends up giving it an unnatural sheen. I also melted beeswax into it, which tends to soak into the material and is also conceptually more in tune. I also painted a crevice of it with oil paint mixed with galkyd.. This makes it a little overly dramatic, so probably should be used sparingly...

The Right Thing

Thinking about perspectives and the question of where is right and where is wrong.
There is the absolute right which are things like the law, or the Ten Commandments, which describe as a common denominator the rules by which we all should live. No wrong will come to anyone as long as everyone abides by these rules. The relative right describes what is right for a person, and does not necessarily have to be right for another person. This allows for a certain blurriness between right and wrong, or at least allows for the fact that more than one thing can be right.
Ultimately we all start from this perspective, and it is the artists' obligation to explore the universal within his or her personal right perspective.
This then becomes a lot about identity and the feeling of belonging. Strong national and cultural identity allows for a strong sense of belonging, but for the price of a narrower perspective on what is going on outside of that circle. Increased migration and more frequent mobility between different cultures has forced people to feel at home in more diverse cultural circumstances, but often paid for with a sense of uprooting. Although this loss of cultural perspective can be perceived as emptiness, it also opens up a wider perspective on human existence, providing room to explore that border zone beyond reason and before faith.
It contains the questions of the end of knowledge:
Will space exploration ever allow us to understand the infinite emptiness of the universe, and give us an answer to the question of wether we are alone or not?
Does knowing more and more details about the genetics and molecular biology of our brains get us any closer to understanding how we think and how we feel?
How do we respond to the certainty of our own death and what is the reason for hope?
So does Mr Pin Stripe Suite really have the answers to the questions we all want to know???

more loofah

another myung urso

Look what I found- Myung Urso made this brooch using loofah- a much more manageable size I feel!

The finished product

Although the loofah had a mind of its own, I managed to shape it into something resembling a brim. I like the way the light filters through the loofah after I dyed it with the biodegradable packing peanuts. I wanted to create the effect of sunlight shining through leaves. Well it looks like a sunhat although not the most elegant at that.....

Work in progerss

All seems well at this point!

Needlework against the odds

Hemp may be a good choice for stringing beads, but it is barely manageable when knitted. It certainly gave the skin on my hands a hards time!

Loofah is never like loofah

To make a brim of a hat out of loofah is close to impossible! The material has a mind of its own, and although some shaping is possible by making it wet it tends to revert to its own shape after a while. Oh well. Thanks goodness I`m not a milliner- it`s a tough job!

hats

The REI hat made from paper,
A traditional japanese hat, interesting because it allowed room for the particular hairstyle men wore at the time.
A hat with solar panels to add heat to the head- interesting concept because it makes use of the suns power.
A parasol made with a green leaf pattern recreating the shade cast by trees- how lovely is that.

hats

Well, there are millners and other designers making hats, but there has to be something more interesting than this!

corn starch packing peanuts

Another fascinating material which I semidissolved in water then mashed it all up and spread it across the bottom of a bowl. I thwn dried this in the oven, and ended up with a relatively inflexible sheet material. I am not sure though how likely this is to crack....I also found a site describing how to make your own using water and corn starch- well i am not sure i produced a packing peanut, it looks more like a squishy donut. the center part is interesting though, it is almost like parchment paper.

Bio Plarn

Plarning, knitting with yarn made from plastic bags, has recently become a popular way of upcycling plastic bags. This is a crocheted sample of a biobag, made out of corn starch and certain biodegradable polymers. The biobag yarn I made by ripping the bag into strips, whcih results in a relatively soft material. The final sample has been `ironed` in the oven.

material samples

So, here my samples of sustainable materials- first comes molded fibre pulp, i e egg containers. These are made from 100% recycled paper, but i`m not so sure about their own recyclability. Can they be recycled? and into what? Can they be composted? None of the sites I looked at explicitly claimed that...

In defense of David

In review today I was questioned about health care for the beautiful, and really this is not what i had in mind. I took the David statue for a number of reasons: one, he was conceived by Michelangelo, who is associated with so many anatomical studies. His image of man in a circle would have been more suitable but more difficult to build a pyramid with. Two, I was looking for an image of a healthy human being, and rather than resorting to drawings common in medical illustrations I chose a historic image. Three, instead of having to define the specifics of the healthy human myself I relied on a renaissance anatomical master to do it for me. The only problem I can see with this is, that he is that little bit too beautiful as a model of health.

Health Hype

Health Hype

When I arrived back from Mexico City there was the Ponoko package waiting for me, and I had a lot of fun playing with some of the cast offs to see what else can be done with these materials other than laser cutting.....
here are some of them

ecoblog

Sustainable design seems such an overwhelmingly huge subject, that I feel the need to come up with my own personal summary of what is entailed.
1. Material resources have to be sustainable. This includes materials from renewable sources ( e. g. bamboo), reusables (e.g. certain glass milk bottles), recycled or upcycled materials (e.g. paper bags)
2. Production of materials has to be clean, i.e. no huge amounts of toxic waste or excessive use of clean water while producing a `clean` product.
3. Material has to be produced as close to the end user as possible to avoid excessive transportation with its inherent carbon footprint.
4. Responsible disposal of material: reusable, recyclable, biodegradable etc
5. Production has to be socially responsible, i.e. no sweatshops, decent pay.
Sustainable design has implications on most aspects of life, as it deeply affects the way we live, the way we handle products, and the way we consume. Sustainable design leads to a sustainable lifestyle.

Well, what does it all mean?
To start thinking about what should be produced using more sustainable materials I felt that I should really examine the contents of our trash can. The first thing to notice was that there was a lot of biodegradable materials clogging it up, and ultimately filling up our non-recyclable plastic trash bags. Since we live in the Peoples Republic of Takoma Park, a nuclear free zone, I went to the public works department and picked up a free composting bin. While I was going there I took the huge amounts of electronic waste for recycling, an entire trunk full of old hard drives, printers, and other heavy metal laden stuff. Several plastic bags of old batteries went along with it. After that the house felt seriously detoxified!
Then I went and did some applied research in one of the little shops in down town Takoma, named `The Tranquil soul`. which I had stumbled upon only recently. I asked the girl in the shop several questions regarding the materials things were made out of. All of their clothing was made from fair trade materials. All fibers were modified natural materials, ie, cotton, hemp and bamboo. Now the latter surprised me somewhat, because it is so soft that they make underwear out of it! In fact I was so curious that i had to buy a pair!!! And, of course, to take my purchases home I was given a corn plastic bag, which I can now throw into my newly acquired compost bin!

wo obbeliiee

Well, I can only hope that my illustrator drawings are a little more precise that my paper cutting skills! But this is roughly how I wanted them all to be standing on top of one another. Ideally they would have had some kind of slotting mechanism, but I wanted them all to face in one direction, and that called for the use of poles for support.

Organs

After several exhausting night shifts on illustrator I will not upload any of my drawings from there. But here are some images from Grey`s anatomy that those David humans will have cut out. The majority of them will be in clear acrylic- the healthy people whose contribution to the system is all but invisible. Interspersed will be a few made out of a more natural material- leather and felt- they will need all the support they can get from the others in order to stand upright.

David returns from America

Sorry, Americans! but this one made me giggle

The perfect human

After looking through a number of images to find a good healthy human average, I thought of Michelangelo as the renaissance father of human anatomy. Although his famous human in a circle drawings would lend themselves more to this topic, I felt that his statue of David with his perfect proportions more suitable for building a pyramid.

Health Hype

Onto the next...

HEALTH IS A BASIC HUMAN NEED AND FREE ACCESS TO HEALTH CARE IS A BASIC HUMAN RIGHT

On the surface this is my medical background speaking, still, on another level this is me speaking, and it is what made me go into medicine in the first place all those years ago.
There couldn`t be more hype about the subject already. Now that the health care reform bill has passed with great fanfare, it has become an issue of acceptance and trust in the government. And still the bill is only the beginning to get everyone covered and there are still a number of loopholes. The general idea though is to get everyone to contribute to help to pay for the ones in need. I like to think of this system as a pyramid, with the large number of healthy people forming the broad base of support, and a smaller number of sick and needy people coming out on the top. In a way the sickest of the lot is king.
When considering an object that would create hype about health care, I thought that this aspect of coming together in order to help those in need would be best demonstrated in a sculptural object to which every person could contribute, rather than every individual wearing a badge of support. If, as part of a campaign to elicit mass support of health care reform, every person gets to donate one part of the pyramidal sculpture together with a financial contribution, it could quickly become a towering structure that could awe the old pharaohs.

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finished one night jewelry

here are some samples, they are not quite perfect yet, like the earring findings are rather boring- but functional, and the necklace in fact broke due to cheesecloth failure..... ideally the findings would be just as decayable as the pieces themselves