- How did remaking your object in a new material change your perspective and meaning of the object?
Remaking my wallet forced me to reduce my perception of it to it’s function (holding currency), as I imagined how a prehistoric/post-apocalyptic wallet might behave and what type of currency it might need to hold (rocks, shells, scrap metal, etc.).
- What did you enjoy?
I enjoyed the process of harvesting materials from my own yard and the puzzle of piecing them together into a wallet. It felt pretty empowering to be able to work from the ground up (literally, with the bamboo).
- What was challenging? And how did you overcome these challenges?
My own rigid vision and expectation were pretty difficult to work with. I had the idea to only use harvested materials, so when I was forced to use pre-made sisal twine instead of grass I braided myself, it felt like a failure. Similarly, I had this vision of how the wallet would look aesthetically (a ‘folding bamboo taco’ with clasps around the sides), but functionally that left the sides exposed and poorly bound. I could have easily added bamboo or twine to the sides to close them off, but then the structure would be fixed and I really didn’t want that—I want it to unfold, and to fit it’s contents. I still haven’t really found a solution to this.
- Based on the feedback, what would you do next? Or what would you change?
I have a ton of criticisms about my final design, but I think the best feedback I got was to put those aside when presenting and focus on what was good about my project. I can be pretty harsh on myself and sometimes I jump to preemptively put myself or my work down before someone else can.
That being said, I think I would try to experiment with ways to fill in the sides of my design without sacrificing its collapsable form. For the pouch, I would try to weave through the bamboo rather than over-and-around it by drilling holes in them and pulling the twine through (similar to the sides). In retrospect, I wish I took more pictures documenting my process.
- What other projects inspired you and why?
I really liked Sophia’s teacup bear. Beyond being just awesome looking, I thought the process was really inspiring and representative of what we do in this class: literally deconstructing one object by shattering it and reconstructing it into an entirely new one.
