Upon reflecting on my archive, I didn’t really anticipate learning anything about myself that I didn’t already know. Although I didn’t necessarily acquire new knowledge, this exercise did somehow articulate what I already knew in a way that proved to be clarifying. I created categories for the objects in my archive, and it ended up sorting my life into little sections and titling them. My categories were: Weird Versions of Normal Things, External Expression, Things That Make My Life Better, Things that Inspire Creativity, and Things That Make Me Feel Things.
I realized that I value personal expression more than I may have initially realized. Most every object I chose to include in this archive is extremely reflective of my personality or weird sense of humor or interests in some way. I tend to reject things/designs that feel very impersonal or generic and instead gravitate toward the things that are descriptive of the person to whom they belong in some way, and that’s extremely reflected in my archive.
Inspired by the “Scraps” exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, we were instructed to design an object that serves a function by repurposing and combining an already existing object with scrap/waste materials.
I decided to weave a clutch, similar in size and shape to one I own, out of old newsprint used in my Drawing&Imaging course last semester for figure drawings that I’d planned to throw away. Instead of throwing away all that paper, I was able to use it for this assignment. I cut the 18×24″newsprint into about 1.5″ wide strips, folding them width-wise twice to make them thicker and more durable, then wove the strips together, securing them with glue.
Here is a process photo of me wrestling newsprint on my floor.
