Our oceans are transpiring due to our plastics, trash, and other human waste. I created the dress to symbolize Mother Ocean being once beautiful but gradually becoming dragged down by our pollutants.
Our class was required to keep a blog of our installation project. I learned a lot from keeping documentation and simply creating the dress & mannequin(s). There was a lot of trial and error experimentation, but it taught me a lot about how sculpture is all about an ever evolving process.
As much as I stressed over this project, I still had a lot of fun planning & creating it. If I had the time, I’d love to have done more to the dress. But, like many projects, there’s only so much time you can have before its due!
If you’d like to know more about how I created my Sea Dress + Manny, click the link below:
http://www.sea-dress.tumblr.com
Special thanks to:
-Debbie of the Costume Design shop at SJSU.
Without Debbie, this project wouldn’t have been possible. When my sewing machine crapped out, Debbie graciously allowed me in her class to use one of the shop’s sewing machines. She kindly guided me through a lot of sewing techniques that I was new to and was a great teacher to learn from!
-My friend Lain who is a total pro and avid cosplay costume maker.
She also advised and taught me a lot of Sewing 101 basics! Please check out her work at: http://lorraine-yee.blogspot.com/
-TJ, Joel, Peter, and Marcus assisting me with making Manny 1 & 2!! Thank you SO MUCH guys!!
Ties to You
Made with cement, wood, red twine.
About me and my dad.
Metal Pikachu vs. Original Pikachu
So this was my first time casting and it was our practice piece for class. I found my old Pikachu toy lying inside my room and created a two part mold for it with a box and sifted sand. Pouring the molten metal into the mold was really cool!! and also beautiful (seeing the liquid metal).
You’ll notice on the backside of Metal Pikachu, his back caved in a bit. We learned that with all casted molds they begin hollow inside. If the metal doesn’t harden in time, it’ll sometimes collapse in. (It has a collapsed noodle shape in its back side o.o)
A Birthday card and the Birthday Turtle made for my friend, Janney :)
I feel like with every project I’ve done so far—in the spatial realm— it has gotten more and more ridiculously ambitious, as well as, more thrilling, as it is daunting.
Each new project is an invitation to plunge into this crazy mission of: “how am I going to create this complex idea of mine?” I become an explorer of uncharted territory as I engage myself with materials I’ve never used before. (And many times, never even heard of. Expanding Styrofoam? That was a new one for me).
The projects rely heavily on improvisation, and there isn’t necessarily a way of “technically practicing to be better”. Each new idea is an innovation in its own. The process is always varied and different. The only way you can “practice” anything is to constantly research and be as thoroughly knowledgeable of the world as one can be. You have to know the tools, machinery, and processes found in and outside of the shop.
As a spatial artist, you should know what you want to express and how you’re going to generally go about it. But you don’t have to know how it’s going to be done completely (in that way, you leave room for developing change).
But not only do you have to know much about the physical process and research, you have to also be relentlessly open-minded. There are endless possibilities in how you can creatively manipulate and build with materials. You start to become more aware of the potential in the ordinary objects and supplies around you. You begin to see the likes of hardware stores as an aiding playground for infinite ideas. (I will now never think of Home Depot the same).
Through these “practices” and mindsets, I feel you can then master a sort of “efficient control”; to perform and think of beautiful and meaningful craftsmanship.
Art 172 - Systems and Structures
Typehaus
In Art 172, our class focused on creating systems and structures through the use of a repetitive module; I used letters.
Statement:
Letters are the foundation of language. When you connect vowels and consonants you create words. When you connect words you create information and language. Information and language creates what we all universally depend on: Communication.
I built my sculpture in the shape of a house because I wanted to represent that Communication is what makes a house stand. Without it, a house falls apart.
A light hangs from within the house to portray that a warm light radiates from all of us when we’re connected by the a’s, the O’s, the R’s, the p’s, the S’s, and the rest of the alphabet. A house that practices and uses Communication is a house that glows from the inside.
*The Typehaus was made with 1/4” birch ply wood, E-poxy, hinges, a 40 watt switch light cord, and a laser cutter. One side of the roof is liftable, so the lightbulb can be replaced.
Special Thanks to:
Shannon Wright
the amazing laser cutter at school
Marc Mendoza
John Deguzman
and everyone else who helped me on this project!
Art 13 - Natural vs. Artificial
Electronic Fruit Baskets
In my class’ final project, we had to depict the concept: Natural vs. Artificial. Using plastic fruits I found at Savers, I represented Nature. I put a spin on it by making ‘industrialized looking fruits’ to represent the idea of artificiality.
My original inspiration was simply to make a Banana phone. But my idea developed over time into a fruit basket(s) of apple speakers, lighted grapes, and an orange with techy components.
My piece is interactive; you can lift a tab to hear the Banana phone sing a short clip of the famous Banana Phone song by Raffi. If you plug an mp3 player into the cord extended from the apple speakers, the mini apple speakers will play you music :)
The grapes were lighted by Christmas lights. The orange has no true function like the rest of the fruits, but a switch exists on the back of it and there are several socket attachments I cut and placed within it. Lastly, a green Ethernet cord wraps around my fruit baskets to represent a vine entwining power and electricity through the fruit baskets.
Special thanks to:
-Shannon Wright
-TAs Melody, Steve
-Stephanie and her family
-Corry and his ID tools
-Tony for his speakers
-Brittani for inspiring the Hallmark recording card idea
Art 13 - Early 1900’s Phonograph in Cardboard
