[First Year] Reflection

I. Bio

My name is Jihye Debbie Kang majoring fashion design in Parsons.

Back in my home country, South Korea, I majored Computer Science and Electronic Engineering but I found vision in art and decided to pursue my study in art from the basic.

My vision is to let people feel the love, warmth, and happy energies  through all the works I do. In terms of art, I wish to achieve this through fashion which I think is the most experiential forms of art.

 

II.Summary

 

 

As for me, taking  foundation courses in the freshman year was more than a period in which I attained foundational skills; it was a period in which I continuously question myself what is my color and what are my working direction and process. By doing different projects, I realized that I like to do works that plant a seed of of thoughts in audiences by inviting them to my work and letting them to participate. Focused on this characteristics, I did lots of works varying from drawing, painting, sculpture, and digital throughout the semesters. Particularly, the first semester consisted of more conceptual works with themes like memory and time  while the second semester made up of works with more practical and concrete topics from 1970’s, sustainability and figures from nature.

 

Aside from the Integrative Studio and Seminar in which bridge project was part of the courses, I realized that I was making my own bridges between different classes throughout the semester. For instance, for the first semester, I applied tessellation I learnt from Drawing and Imaging in Time class’ mapping project, and extended the idea from this mapping project for another mapping project in Studio class. For the second semester, as my interest in sustainability increased with the sustainable system class, I did projects in Studio, Space/Materiality, and Sustainable system with the topic of labor issues, global warming, and zero waste at the same time. Like this, instead of thinking about each courses as separate classes, I learn to do cross-thinking and make holistic approaches based on my color and thought on given topics.

 

One of the things in Parsons that made me surprise was the fact that, unlike my assumption that all the classes in art school will be  studio based, there are so much readings, analyzing, and writing. It was true that the amount of academic studies that I needed to do with studio works at the same time were burdensome, I realized that they were really helpful as the time passed. The readings and researches from time to time became guidelines for further progress or breakthrough for unsoluble points. Moreover, some researches or readings that seemed to be unhelpful or irrelevant at a moment later became new initiatives for different designs or projects. Feeling as if I was using both the right and the left brain was though but I truly learned that academic researches, readings, and writings are huge part of design which adds depth and skills to interrelate different fields at the same time.

I believe what makes different projects more exciting is myself. I have been studying in different field for a long time and my dream was to come to this school, create artwork, share different perspectives and thoughts, and hear what other people in the field think about concerns I have about art. When this dream became reality, I felt so happy, thankful and as if I could do anything. Especially in the first semester, all these tolerated thoughts burst out that all my energies, thoughts, and heart were directed to creating artwork. As all these thoughts and meanings became the core of my working process, most of the works had approach of fine arts but from time to time I felt disorganized and overwhelmed with too much thoughts. However, after pouring out everything and resolving some stuffiness, the thoughts became more organized, letting me to objectively see what I need, what should be added or subtracted. With this as a foundation, I was able to do works that dive into actions and works more directly. Although two approaches were very different, what made both of them interesting was myself, who considered all these steps as part of my progress and my work.

 

III. Two Highlights

 

1, Self portait

planning :

The first highlight of my freshman year was a portrait of myself and a partner in Studio I. We were asked to know one another better by going to museum together, spend time, and do interviews, and create portrait of each other and oneself. Unlike the other projects, this project also had some restrictions that it needs to be four 18×24 in size, black and white or neutral in colors, and incorporate text in the work. More than meeting this restriction was thinking about how to well express myself and my partner at the same time.

In conclusion, it was a work comprised of lots of thought and concerns, and to be honest, creating my portrait was much harder than creating my partner’s one. I was captured with the question ‘ who am I’ and was not able to answer for a long time. However, as I interviewed my partner, I realized that I was asking the same question to myself and based on this idea, I created a work with a theme ‘Myself reflected in others’. For my partner’s portrait, I worked with a theme ‘ showing the invisible qualities’.

 

Outcome:

 

“See the Invisible” : Portrait of the Partner

I wanted to let people see the invisible qualities I found in my partner, as well as challenge people to see beyond the prejudices and biases they have about any nationalities, appearances or physical qualities.

I created a simple box, which outside appearance was so simple that people did not even think that it was a final work.  However, for inside of the box, I created a pattern using  my partner’s name in Urdu and Korean and placed them inside the box with mirrors to create an effect of Kaleidoscope. It was very ordinary and simple from the outside but once people looked into it, a whole fascinating visuals captured their eyes. Using the continuous reflection made by the pattern and mirror, I wanted to introduce fascinating qualities of my partner that is seen when people look into her as well as question even what they are seeing is what they are actually seeing right.

 

 See the Invisible : Outside

See the Invisible : Outside

See the Invisible : Inside

See the Invisible : Pattern created using Urdu and Korean

 

 

“I see myself while seeing you” : Self Portrait

 

“Who am I ” is the question that everyone, at least once in their lifetime, question themselves. It is a question that needs to be asked throughout the life and that brings different answers all the time. While doing the project, I was again stuck in this question and confused. However, while interviewing my partner for her portrait, I realized that I was questioning the same questions to myself like ‘what would I answer to this question?’. Eventually, I got to know myself better by questioning others and this idea was a start of it all. By creating an eye, which pupil reflects a person or a thing that one sees, I wanted to share my experience of seeing myself while seeing others.  A layer of mirror paper and three clear acetate was used to create an eye and each layers of drawing was created using the text. Layers of my name in Korean, English, and my message “I see myself while seeing others” were written/drawn in the form of eyes and when all these came together, they created an eye.

 

I see myself while seeing you

I see myself while seeing you

I see myself while I seeING you : Layer with Korean name

I see myself while seeing  you : Layer with my English name

I see myself while I seeing you : Layer with the message

 

 

2, Dynamic intervention

 

Planning:

 

It was a project to address one of the issues that fashion industry is negatively affecting by creating a brand, garment, and promotional video with the group of four.  Through number of meeting and conversation, we decided to tackle intense labor issues. Since four different people with different aesthetics were working together, having cohesiveness throughout the design was also important. In order to achieve this, same colors and fabrics were used, and patterns were created and applied in each garment in different ways. Logos were made by each other and voted while the video was shoot and edited together.

Since most of us were taking sustainble system at the same time, everyone had an awareness on the issue but sustainability was a topic that became even more complex as we thought of it. Since every problem was interrelated that finding a specific focus was difficult. So, we defined what sustainability means as a group, shared what areas we are interested in, and shared different ideas on how to tackle them. In this process we were able to come up with ideas like  ‘unconventional way of making garment’ and D.I.Y and decided to work based on this. Moreover, pattern of city+urban scape was created out of image that comes to my mind when I think of sustainability and shared all throughout the designs to achieve cohesiveness.

 

Outcome:

garment from videoshoot

frontview

sideview

backview

City+Urban Pattern

 

Thinking :

I am a heavy thinker and this characteristic is also seen in my works. Whenever I start working, I ask myself what the topic or them means to me, and for the works that contains meaning, I do not start making  until I myself is convinced  with the meaning. I do believe that this is my strength that enable me to create work that people can sympathize with and participate but at the same time, a weakness. Sometimes, taking an action right away and earning from it is needed but my process of thinking is too long that I miss this opportunity or fail to balance my time in achieving satisfying visual completeness. The first semester for me was going through these thoughts and steps but I was happy to express tolerated thoughts and ideas and resolve my crave for art. In conclusion, all the projects received a critique that my works are silent and subtle yet have lasting and afterglow once invited. As a artists who wants to create participatory and experiencing work, I was happy to hear this note but question on importance of meaning and visual came to my mind.

If the first semester was comprised approaches of fineart that are centered on meaning and thoughts, the second semester was comprised more of design approaches. The experiences I had in the first semester as well as the characteristic of the projects in the second semester which had definite themes and topics made me to dive into actions more quickly. Although I kept on thinking about the themes and their meaning to me, they were not separate process of thinking and working but simultaneous processes.  I believe the work that continued within the theme while thinking about what do I think and how should I express in my color was more efficient in terms of containing both the visual and meaning. In conclusion, I was happy with the final work in which I was able to convey the message without using obvious expression but through the subtle expression.

Throughout the different projects with different approaches, I learned that although thoughts and concern on my works are essential, spending more time for them does not necessarily mean having more of my color in the work nor spending shorter time means lesser of my color in the work. If my sincere thoughts and enthusiasm exist and when they meet with aesthetic qualities, I think great work with my color blooms.

 

 

 

IV. Conclusion

 

The conclusion I made from my freshman year in which I thought of the importance of meaning and visual was that both of them are equally important. If the meaning and thoughts I wish to convey through the artwork is definite but is not backed up by strong visual to invite people, it will be difficult to reach the direction I wish to pursue.

Moreover, I realized that design is connected to social, environment, economic and human issues beyond its meaning and visual. More than designing a sustainable and beautiful garment, I started to think how to have positive effect through the garment so that people will be able to think about the same issue.

I would like to continuously create artworks that let people experience, feel, think and my vision is to convey warmth, positive energy and love through this. With this vision in my life, I would like to learn more technical skills that will enable me to express my ideas better and broaden various perspectives on aesthetics. As I stand in the last page of my first year in Parsons, I hope and pray that I will be a designer who creates meaningful artworks and design in the field of fashion which I think is the most experiencing forms of art.