Avatar:
My first semester of Integrative Studio and Seminar, which focused on the concept of the avatar, required me to work across the genres of writing and visual arts, connecting the two medias through projects in both classes. Throughout this semester, I broadened my artistic interests from traditional creative nonfiction, essays, fine art, and graphic design, and tried many new projects, including ones in fashion, sculpture, and new kinds of writing such as the braided essay. I also found inspiration in many new places including city streets and the work and ideas of my classmates. In addition, I think that my entire approach to art has become more developed through focus on iteration as well as the final piece, and therefore my ideas about goals and what constitutes success have changed. In this way, the body of work that I produced during my first semester Integrative classes is now an avatar for my new mode of approaching and working on my art and writing. My Bridge projects represent the ways that my artwork has developed over the last three months as it has become more diverse, inspired and iterative.
Above: working with 3D media for Studio Bridge 2
Artistic Development:
During Integrative Studio and Seminar, specific Bridge projects contributed to this development in different ways. An assignment that helped me to expand my experience with different kinds of art was Bridge 3, which required me to work with fashion design and production for the first time. Making a garment made me realize the artistic power of fashion in a tangible way that I had never recognized before, and taught me new skills. Then, in Bridges 2 and 4, I was pushed to work with 3D materials, which I had little experience with, and though I discovered that working with space is definitely not my niche, creating those projects forced me to think about the way that space and materials impact perception and success in art.
Above: Fashion design in Bridge 3 outfit
Connection and Synchronicity:
I experienced connection between Studio and Seminar early on, with our Bridge 3 project. This fashion project required research through a museum exhibit as well as our independent work. Though the item I researched for Seminar was not the same garment that my team created for Studio, conducting in-depth research about one fashion item made the work feel very connected to the broad history of fashion in general, and I felt that our studio work carried on this history as we made an outfit. Later, I found the most synchronicity during Bridge 4, when we researched and wrote a Seminar essay about a New York City street, and made a “book” in studio that represented it. My teams’ research about our street greatly informed our design decisions with our studio project, and the two projects seemed strongly connected.
Above: Hanging mobile “book” for Bridge 4
Improved Skills:
Seminar class has improved my skills in reading and writing, and also made me consider these skills differently. Trying different modes of writing, such as the braided essay in Bridge 4, expanded my ideas about what an essay is, and how to write one effectively. Reading and annotating pieces has caused me to slow down my reading so that I consider each word and sentence more carefully, thinking about how and why the writer achieved what they did. In Studio, I feel that my making skills have not become particularly more specialized or technically fine, but instead that they have become more diverse. I now have at least cursory skills in many areas that I had no experience at all with before, including fashion design, woodworking, and 3D modeling in general. I think that having this variation of skills will prove helpful later on, when I work on projects that require integration.
Challenges and Growth:
An assignment that proved to be a particular challenge to me was Bridge 4, when in Studio class we were required to create a book. It was an involved project, and deadlines, materials, and team members were stressful, but my team also struggled to be “creative” enough for our instructor, who urged us to think outside the box in terms of how the book was constructed. In the end, we changed our concept in an attempt to please her, and I think that this was a bad choice because our final project was not as strong as it could have been. This is also a project that I regard as a bit of a failure – at least, one that I can say was partially my own fault, as opposed to a project that had errors caused by others. However, this project also taught me that sometimes you need to choose between fulfilling an assignment or pleasing someone and working creatively the way that you want to, and that sometimes materials and people fail and I need to remain focused and motivated.
Common Themes:
Throughout my writing and making during this semester, a common thread that appeared in my work was a desire to infuse art and writing with the personal. The idea of portraying personal things, whether they were feelings or interests or people themselves, was present in most of my Bridges. Some of my favorite Bridges were Bridge 1, when we designed a “selfie” avatar of ourselves in Studio, and Bridge 2, when we wrote essays profiling a partner in Seminar and created sculptures in Studio that represented the way people experience abstract verbs.
Above: Bridge 1 “selfie” avatar
Conclusion and Moving On:
As a whole, this semester of Integrative classes has taught me a variety of skills in various medias that I can apply to my future artwork. More importantly, these classes encouraged me to branch out stylistically and in terms of genre, and to approach projects as if each iteration and idea is important within the finished whole. Though I want to focus on graphic design rather than a variety of kinds of art, Studio class taught me that different kinds of art often serve useful for expressing ideas. And while I hate iterating endlessly, both Studio and Seminar taught me the value of peer reviews and multiple approaches to make a successful final project. This semester peaked my interest in experimenting with new and different media, and though I probably won’t do much fashion or woodworking, I am eager to work with different modes of visual art such as painting, collage, and digital design, and to discover and try out new approaches to writing.
