In Space and Materiality, we had to model a cultural dinner table inspired by Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party.
There were a lot of moving parts to this project and it included more different mediums than any prior work in this class.
One of my favorite parts of the assignment was making linoleum prints. I have never cut linoleum before and Rob’s story of stitches and tetnus shots scared me into using the chisels safely.
My poster design was a fish riding a skateboard through the mountains. I really enjoy making pieces that look whimsical and I decided a new medium shouldn’t alter my style. I decided to print out this Illustrator file and transfer it to lineoleum. Once I finished, I realized I’d really like to also add text. In the spirit of making lo-fi art, I wrote “idiosyncrasy begets style”. I believe that the flaws of my pieces will eventually become my creative style and will transform into strength.
The second piece was to create an alginate mold and make plaster positives. I decided to stick with a theme of skateboarding, so I casted a wheel. it doesn’t look like a normal wheel should. That’s because this was a wheel that I actually used back in California. I used this wheel so much that I wore through the rubber into the plastic core. That is what gives the wheel its distinctive shape.
On my first attempt, I poured the alignate wrong and instead got an alginate positive of the inside of the core. I liked the way in perfectly modeled the inside of the wheel’s core.
I decided to screen print my table cloth with a map that I arranged in photoshop. It is a combination of the 3 places I’ve lived and 1 place I hope to live. Two different neighborhoods in Oakland, California and Brooklyn Heights. The last place I added to the map was a map of Sao Miguel. This is where my ancestors are from and I hope to live there one day.
The next element I made was a fork and knife laser cut from acrylic. I wanted to model them off of plastic forks and knives that my family would bring on camping trips. I also gave them a beat up look, like they would look if I took them on a camping trip.
The last two elements I included was a clay model of a fish head displayed on a plate that I painted blue. I did not get a chance to get a picture of them because I did not have a camera on me for that part of the process.
This assignment was presented in class with two more elements, a plate and a clay fish head. This was a challenging assignment because I needed to watch which various moving parts needed attention. My favorite part of the project was making the linoleum prints because of the physicality of the process.
