Of Hangers and the Shirts that Wear Them

I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't hopping back onto this blog because of my current Art class requiring some kind of online diary. However, that doesn't mean I can't make the most of it.


So my first project for my Sculpture class was to take a shirt and transform it into something sculpturally interesting. We started with a group project, and my partner and I came up with this little thing.

By little, I mean it's actually pretty large. About 3 feet tall, transformed by  wood plank and some rubber bands. We did this in under 20 minutes in fact, and I think it was quite successful.




When asked to come up with something else in my own time using more sewing skills, I struggled to come up with an idea I loved. I'm not super familiar with 3D art, and sometimes it takes me a while to wrap my head around it.

Once I bit the bullet and actually got to making, I found some coat hangers( I bought them in excess in preparation for my move into my new apartment). I was curious how I could  cut them up to make a neat structure that the shirt could then wrap around.

The coat hangers themselves ended up pretty compelling, but I could not find a way to cut up and wrap the shirt around it in a way I was happy with, be it due to my lack of skills or time (probably a little of both!). I'd like to revisit the project again at some point, as I feel my end result did not bring out the potential of what it could be.

The year is 2013, things have changed.

Okay well, maybe just things besides my affinity for bad media. But honestly, there's a lot of stuff out there now!

It's pretty exhausting when you try to think about it. In fact, there have been studies saying that those without all this social media hulabaloo are a bit happier! When I read that, I feel a little responsible. 

See, when I was in junior high I decided to be a typical misanthrope and live my life online. I was pretty active in message boards, making lots of online friends at the time. I have always thought of Facebook and the like as a message board but for your friends in the physical world. Now it seems that everyone is living the digital way first and their real life and real conversations are becoming a lot harder for them to enact.

I also feel jipped! I worked really hard to get out of being so uncommunicative and made sure I could converse really well. Was that time wasted? Should I have spent it learning how to text faster instead? I wouldn't doubt that that has become a desirable job skill.

Anyway, I have just been trying to make sense of it all and get back into it somehow. I suppose putting a lot of work into a written blogpost that I wouldn't get much for didn't appeal to me. Also how does one compartmentalize? I mean if I want to do some varied things should I start a different blog for each? I have trouble finding my own keys sometimes, how can I expect myself to keep up with 2 blogs? 

This online world is constantly evolving. Who knows if these networks will last. I've always liked blogger though, since it allows for long form posts and interesting discussion, so that is where I'll try and get back into this.

Sightseeing

So we had an assignment to find one place we were familiar with, and another that we knew but always wanted to find out more about. The familiar place for me was UW's Odegard Library where I have spent many a late night on an assignment. But man, I knew so little of the Hub, our recreational center.

There are game consoles and Bowling alleys down there?! Guess I know what my tuition is paying for. Too bad I probably won't get the free time to use them. My partner had been there a lot, so I think it amused him to see me so amazed and interested in it all. We then got to show off our areas and there were some pretty neat things to see, like this secret harp practice room.

It pretty astounding to see all the little nooks and crannies of the campus that I miss durig the basic commute from one class to the other. I wonder if we'll get to do more of this.

They took it down

Hmph. Guess nobody likes positivity these days.

Practicing my Social skills

So We are taking this class in social practice, which is the art of uh...


Well that's mostly the first problem with the craft. It's kind of like creating with art skills a situation that people can interact with. It can be a performance where you take part in a public display of something or another, or you can just leave a thing out there for people to interact with and document how they use and shape it. It's really fascinating, and a bit lofty.


Well here was our first intervention

Ah, it all becomes clear now eh? Yeah, not really I guess. The idea was to make a sign with some special kind of encouraging statement that those starting out their quarter could read and hold on to(and maybe laugh at). We tried our best to make a pun out of using the area near the elevator. Actually, I was the one who suggest we simplify it down to two words(Rise up to the challenge would have been really dang hard to cut out the letters for in only ten minutes.). Its interesting to take an active role in your work, and I have had a taste of this kind of thrill before with my installation project. It'll be fun to see if people take to it, or if management takes it down.

Also wanted to show this colorful arrow I was working on for it with the scraps. I didn't push to use it, but ain't it cute?

New Year, New Possibility

My next year at UW should be pretty good. I mean, they gave me a doughnut that was Purple on the inside, so I think that's a pretty good sign.

It's been a long time

Now I'm


Coming back home.



Yeah, the comeback before didn't quite work out. Doesn't mean this can't though! I'll do my best to keep things up to date as more art things come along. Stay tuned...