Yep. This succulent pot, again. When we were each instructed to select an object that we have a strong emotional connection to, I was once again reminded of how not sentimental I am toward stuff. I always think I’m too sentimental in general as a person, but I feel that way toward people and memories and experiences, not objects. So I chose this object because it made me feel really happy and excited every time I looked at it, which is why I was surprised I ended up writing words such as “nostalgic” and “connected” in association with it.
Those are the two emotions I ultimately spotlighted for this assignment, beginning at first with only the word “connected” or “unity” to explore in my soap carving, but ultimately adding “nostalgic” over the course of the final week of the project while I was creating my final submission because that’s what I kept feeling while I was making it. These were the most relevant emotions because the succulent pot reminded me of my mom and one of my best friends because my mom bought it for me the last time I went home to Florida when we stopped at a store together on the way over to my best friend’s house who, upon seeing it when I arrived, proceeded to respond, “That is the most you object I have ever seen.”
In my feedback, it was mentioned that the red thread reminded someone of veins, which I found really interesting because of the nostalgic family element involved while I was creating this. It wasn’t intentional, but I’m intrigued by the unconscious things an artist integrates into a piece that gets communicated to an audience unintentionally. The other piece of feedback that stood out to me was the bit about someone feeling like they’re looking in on a moment that they’re not supposed to see because it’s so personal in nature. Creating uncomfortability with a drawing is a concept I’m really fascinated by and interested in exploring, but this is a type of uncomfortability I’ve never considered, and going forward, I’d love to explore emotional uncomfortability even more to see what I can create.
I loved this prompt and I think it was a brilliant way to not only challenge us, but to get us to challenge ourselves in a way that was both effective and exciting. This final iteration could take any form, as long as it featured a skill/material we have proficiency in, along with one that is exploratory. I’ve been wanting to try to embroider into a drawing since I ran out of time to try it during my studio final last spring, so I decided to finally try it with this assignment.
I initially had planned to draw a diptych on paper and embroider into each panel, connecting the two pieces with the embroidery floss, as well as using the thread as an illustrative tool as opposed to a sort of collage of materials that sit one on top of the other. I had never done embroidery prior to this assignment and was afraid I would tear the paper and make a huge mess and destroy everything since I didn’t know what I was doing, plus I hated how much paper I feel I’ve been wasting lately cutting larger pieces down to the size I need, so I decided to use scrap muslin that a fashion student was going to throw away to see what it could look like, and the graphite on the muslin ended up creating this really wonderful texture that I can’t wait to explore even more in the future. I drew on the fabric with graphite pencils, embroidered into it (which was actually super fun and meditative, aside from the incessant knots the embroidery floss kept tangling itself into, and I can’t wait to try a more elaborate design!), then mounted the embroidered drawings onto two 8″x8″ canvases for presentation purposes.
Had I had more than like 5 days to execute this, I would love to try to brave the woodshop and create a free standing box-type form to wrap the muslin around to allow for the drawing to exist in space. I’d alter the perspectives in the drawing so it’d look as if the hands are coming forward out of the fabric, having the two images more significantly engaging with one another to explore how three-dimensional I can make a drawing. This is definitely something I’m going to explore going forward, even though I don’t totally know what form that will take, but I love the idea of stretching the limitations of a flat, two-dimensional image that I create and figuring out how I can take the drawing outside of the page and allow it to take up space.
I didn’t think I would particularly enjoy a project that made me explore my feelings in a way that does not seem to be unlike therapy, but I really feel like I got so much out of this and pushed myself in a way that was so beneficial and that resulted in a lot of growth both creatively and skill-wise. I actually tracked down my studio teacher last Tuesday whose class I took both semesters last year (whom I loved loved looooved) and chatted with her about this class and this project, and I showed her my fabric sketch exploration I’d done the night prior then told her about this prompt and how brilliant and beneficial I found the required combination of material proficiency and exploration to be and she said not only agrees with its brilliance, but that she’s totally gonna steal this idea because it’s so good. I can’t wait to see what other rad stuff I learn to make in this class this semester.
As for process, here’s the page of my sketchbook from when I was getting the final iteration of Project 3 sorted, along with the reference photo I took to use while I was drawing the second panel, because I couldn’t keep putting my pencil down to look at my relaxed right hand as reference because I DRAW WITH MY RIGHT HAND THAT WAS TAKING AGES:
