Artist Statement

My work usually consists of a series of photographs, drawings or film that go in and out of a nostalgic dreamlike sequence. It’s often pieced together moments of my life that I use in order to explore this theme. The process that I go through before starting a new piece is simply putting my earphones in, walking and observing the small details of the city, from the things people have written on walls to the words they throw around. Most people say that when they live in New York City they rarely look up, but most of my inspiration comes from looking up at the buildings, the sky and fully feeling everything the city has to offer.

This body of work came from the seasons changing. Hearing the birds chirping and watching the cherry blossoms fall to the sound of the rain. The feeling of Spring and new beginnings coming along. For this piece I will be creating a film inspired by the Japanese animated film “5 centimeters per second”  written and produced by Makoto Shinkai. I will be using a digital camera and filming all throughout the city then editing with Premiere Pro in order to add the effects and evoke a dream like notion.

For my final project I decided to make an imagery that puts both Japanese and American culture in conversation. The image represents traditional things we often associate with both cultures. The set up expresses the way they are gradually seeping into one another and how Japanese culture is slowly making its way into American advertising and vice versa.

Since I always fear blank canvases and making mistakes my first set of rules was to only use pen so that I wouldn’t be able to erase the images that I created. After presenting my images, Rachel challenged me to make more pieces like the blind contour in the first set, so that’s what became my rule for the second set of images. I really enjoyed doing the blind contours. It was scary at first, but it was very freeing.

From my mom aspiring to be a photographer, my dad being a pastry chef and my sister studying fashion design, art has always somehow seeped its way into my life. I hadn’t always noticed it. I never drew as good as my sister did, I hated cooking and I always preferred being taken a picture of rather than taking it. My interests leaned more towards music, science and speech competitions. I used to dream of becoming a chemist. Putting formulas together and creating new shampoo bottles. I remember when my mother would draw up a bath for me I would take all the soaps, shampoos, conditioners mix them all together. Knowing how much my mother loved lotion, I would look up at her, smile and tell her I would name my first lotion after her. As I grew older I realized that art is not only drawing or painting. It’s so much more. I realized that music was my art form, conducting speeches and chemistry formulas was all an art form within itself.

I always had a set goal for my future, but as life starting passing by I started to lose that a little more every day. After graduating from High School with IB chemistry not being my greatest friend, I decided I would go into communications. In my first year at The University of British Columbia I fell in love with my creative writing classes and that’s how it all began. Unfortunately UBC did not have a Communication or Creative Writing Major in the specific field that I wanted. So I moved to New York. My first semester at Lang I hated, so I decided to transfer to Parsons. I started drawing and making art that I wasn’t even aware I was capable of doing. I put together my portfolio and here I am, a Communication Design major.

The inspiration for my work often comes from pieced together moments of my life that I use to explore a theme of nostalgia as well as my home town. One of my first works in my Space and Materiality class was to pick a symbol that represents the way we are seen by society and the way we see and identify ourselves. I picked a shell as my symbol because I love hiding away in my own bubble. For this project we had to use linear materials in order to create our 3D symbol. I chose to use wood because I had never worked with it before and it had a quality and feel to it that I really enjoyed. I started making quick mock ups using cardboard, aluminum foil, wire, foam and thread. Once I had an idea of how I wanted it to look I started drawing sketches in order to visualize my imagination. This project was a real challenge, but I truly enjoyed working on it and I was very satisfied with my final result. I also loved experiencing with materials that I had never used before.

Another project that I really enjoyed working on was also a Space and Materiality project. The goal of this Project was to create a wearable object connected to one specific community of our choice. My initial inspiration was Cubism in the early 20th century. Cubism was an avant grade art movement that revolutionized European paintings and sculptures. I’ve always had a passion for structured and architectural designs, so for this piece I combined the both. After I had a good idea of what the form would be, I started by creating triangles and ate shape with paper and cardboard just to know how many pieces I would need. I initially wanted to use plexi glass but it was too heavy on the body, so I decided to use Polycarbonate. I cut each triangle by using a hook blade, then drilled two holes at the bottom of each triangle and used a chemical liquid to meld each side to each other in order to make a 3D triangle. I then traced the mannequins dimensions on muslim, placed the triangles and attached them with a piece of beige thread. Finally, I decided to keep the triangles see through because I wanted the models skin color to show through the piece.

It’s funny how when we are little we aren’t afraid to dream, but once we start getting older we begin to overthink about our careers, our parents, money. I  never thought I would fall in love with Space and Materiality as much as I did and I have thought a lot about switching my major to Product Design. I hope to take more classes similar to this one and but I am not sure what the future would hold with that major. I’m also interested in advertising, which is why I am in Communication Design. However, maybe I could Major in Product Design and Minor in Communication Design in order to learn more about both fields.

CRADLE TO CRADLE DESIGN

This Ted Talk revolved a lot around the question “what is our intention as species?” William McDonough makes an incredible point on community and trust. He expresses that we can’t exchange value for a very long time if we don’t trust each other. That made me think about how as consumers we blindly trust companies from our childrens toys to the blanket we use to go to bed, but if we take a moment to read the tags we would realize the hazardous aspects of these products. And when we try replace it with something else we don’t realize (or we do but we keep it hidden) that we’re taking the attention off of the new materials by saying that we’re “no long using paper” for example but the consumer doesn’t realize that the new material is still a destroying factor. I think the idea of creating something for which designers can analyze their products for human and ecological healing is incredible. It’s also important that they created a protocol so companies can send it to their suppliers since most of their products go straight from supplier to consumer. It’s an amazing way to make sure products are safe for our children and ourselves.

THE ROUE TO A SUSTAINABLE FUTURE

Alex Steffen discussed how 1/3 of our planet is made up of kids, which to me means two things. The first is if we don’t take care of our planet it may not affect us but it will most definitely have an effect on our children and what kind of world and environment do we want our children to grow up in is something we don’t think about as much as we should. The second is if 1/3 of our planet is made up of kids then we should be educating the younger generation on how to help save our planet because in the end they are the ones who it will effect the most. I also agreed with what he said about cellphones. The fact that a majority of people in developing cities own a cellphone means that what is true for cellphones is true for all technologies and new tools are equally able to make their way into the developing world.

GROW YOUR OWN CLOTHES

What I am still amazed about after learning about this at the Material ConneXion is the way you can use kombucha to make your own fabric. It is one of the most unique and ecological ways to create clothes especially in the fashion world where most of the materials used are parts of animals. But there are many ways in which we can improve this. This idea of creating leather or fabric out of bacteria is very well thought out and manageable. Of course it needs more work and thought since it fragile and it can’t withstand the rain but if this were to develop further it would truly be revolutionary. It could also be useful in developing countries in order to make clothes in a sustainable and efficient way. It’s also an amazing material that can be used to make indoor products.

One of the materials that inspired me the most was the Pirarucu Fish Skin Leather. This material caught my eye from the color to its texture. What also interested me was the way they used fish scales to make leather which is not something that I ever thought was possible. I also think it’s inspiring in an ecological way in order to use the whole animal instead of throwing away the parts we don’t eat. If i were to use them in a project I would do a home mini bar collection with a champagne ice bucket, coasters, a flask, and a tray all made of the Pirarucu Fish Skin. I would also have a collection of utensils with a matching brief case or a collection with a purse, gloves and sun glasses.

The way they made high resolution raised printing patterns on fabric was very interesting to me. It’s such an easy way to create detailed patterns that would otherwise be very hard. With this technology I would probably want to create furniture, packaging design or clothes.

The last material that caught my eye was the translucent sheet. What amazed me the most was the fact that it’s produced as a secretion from bacteria which are fed a sugary solution in this specific case, pineapple juice. The ecologic and natural factor of this material is the most fascinating part and bringing this into market products would be an incredible step forward for commercialized products as well as fashion.

For this assignment we had to pick an object and scale it up.. I first started out by measuring all the dimensions of my shoe, I then doubled the number in order to maintain realistic proportions. I found this assignment very fun, the process took a lot of time and patience but the end result was very satisfying. It was also helpful in understanding how to keep a ridiculously large object proportional and realistic to its original size.

For Project 3 we had to create a map of New York in a literal or abstract way. I decided to collect pictures of writings on the walls and sides of the streets and conversations that people were having with each other on metal railings. I then put them in photoshop cropped out the parts that I liked most and put them in conversation with each other. I really enjoyed every thing about this project, not only the end result but the process as well. It was eye opening to experience the city and pay attention to the little details in streets that I usually walk by without noticing. It made me feel like I had a secret key to these people’s emotions and lives. It’s also interesting when you realize that you have no idea how old these people are, what they look like, who they are but it doesn’t matter because in some way you can relate to them and that’s what makes it beautiful.