For the first half of the second semester in my Integrative Studio 2 class with professor Audra Woloweic, we’ve been asked to reflect on the work we’ve connected with that we’ve made. We’ve done three projects so far, otherwise known as “bridges”: an inquiry on change, an investigation on Public Poetics, and a collaborative piece on Speculative Communication. Throughout these projects, I’ve found that I’ve gravitated towards processed-base work, focused around repetitive acts that mostly relate to the body.
Project 1, Transformation:
For the first bridge, the inquiry on change, I used a breadth of art-making techniques, focusing on expanding my comfort levels in different mediums, as well as brushing up on old techniques. I used this bridge to prepare myself for the semester and had a super fun time experimenting. Here are a few examples of my transformations:
Project 2, Public Poetics:
For the second bridge, we were asked to create pieces with the idea that they would be placed in a public setting (or, they would be in theory). The project was centered around the idea of “public poetics”, the usage of space terrorized with advertisements and turning it into whatever we as artists/designers would like to see, whether that be poetic, political, or personal.
I was really inspired by the prompt but had so many ideas I was unsure what I wanted to focus on. In class, we studied Felix Gonzalez-Torres, an artist and activist who created meaningful yet minimalist pieces that were shown in public places such as billboards. I also looked both online and in museums at influential photographers and different types of meaningful photographs.
With these inspirations in mind, I got to work with my ideas. One idea was to have my art focused on my Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; I would take images of disgusting things in my apartment that trigger me, then post them hugely in high-traffic areas so that the world would see them as abundant as I do in my mind. Another idea was to make an anti-ad poster; something that wasn’t trying to get any message across or sell something, but just exist as beauty in public space. Both ideas inspired me, but the first I was more comfortable making art about and was more excited to create, so I moved forward with that. I created the images of my bathroom drain (gross), as well as a mockup for a sort of advertisement about OCD.
After showing these drafts to my classmates and professor, I got different reviews than I was expecting. I liked the simplicity of the photographs, but they strongly preferred the advertisement and the fingers photo. While I’m not one for not following my gut, the strong approval of the ad design swayed my opinion. I decided to further the ad and the fingers pieces. My professor gave me some advice that inspired me to make it a piece I felt excited about: having one solid color background, not the square encasing the design, creating a color theme and sticking to it, and playing around with font. She also showed a lot of interest in the “i will be okay” writing page and said she could see it as a print of its own, which reminded me of a conceptual piece someone had described to me before, which included someone making a list that became many feet of paper long.
And so I worked on an extremely long list of “i will be okay”‘s:
Here are images of my final piece and a short film my friend Adina Alterman made about wheatpasting:
And I finished the OCD ad, after changing the color scheme, text, and moving around the layout:
This is more of a kitschier piece than I usually make, but it was really fun to do and I’m glad I made something so out of my comfort zone. I focused on the same subject matter, my OCD symptoms, but the end result was completely different than what I was used to. This medium allows for my message to be understood by a vast audience in public, which is just as important as more “private” works that take work to be understood. I’ve not done much graphic design so it was challenging but I feel so accomplished now!
As well as giving me advice about the advertisement piece, my professor advised me about the “gross” obsessive piece including my fingers. She thought adding words at the bottom in columns, such as in a newspaper, could add a final element I was missing. I added a piece of writing of mine and edited it a bit so it would relate to the image, and here it is:
The writing relates to my sinus issues and how those relate to my anxious thoughts/habits. I have a blockage in my nose that I constantly have to deal with, which I realized is surprisingly similar to my anxiety and urges to pick at my skin. It’s always there, though usually unseen. I like this writing a lot and I really love how it looks with the image above it, which adds a final element to my piece that I’m really happy with.
Project 3, Speculative Communication
Our third bridge
