Upon first visiting the Lower East Side Skatepark, I felt like a complete outsider in a city that I now find myself feeling comfortable and safe around. The site did seem quite exclusive to people who skate and the energy that they gave off to everyone else was seemingly as if this was their space and that we were causing disturbance by being within their space. However, the micro culture between the skaters seemed to be very well bonded as I could hear occasional laughter and words of encouragement and advise being passed around.
Photographs and Sketches taken at the park:
List of words describing key impressions:
- Loud
- Concealing/ discretion
- Graffiti
- Protective gear
- Blood
- Grey
- Dangerous
- Dirty
- Abandoned
- Dulled colors
Process pages documenting how my ideas developed:
When interpreting my ideas onto my sketchbook I was thinking of creating a protective gear for the skaters that associated with symbols of ‘cool’ and ‘trendy’ symbols that I would incorporate in the element of design construction for this wearable object project. I did some research into skate culture and found that it has an influence on fashion, music and even the way they talk which did really relate back to the glimpse of the skatepark that I had witnessed. As the outline of this project was to design and fabricate a wearable object that draws inspiration from the park, I found it appropriate to attempt to construct a wearable protective gear for the skaters that would offer them protection as well as create a form of statement when worn.
In the two scans of my sketchbook above, I have documented how my design construction of this protective gear has progressed where I have analyzed and compared each and every aspect of my drawings. It was initially challenging to think of how I was going to make something so mundane and basic in original design construction become something trendy. I decided to look back at the material study observations that I had made in hope that it would give me a better understanding of how I was going to achieve this affect. The modular shape gave me a better sense of how I wanted to shape my structure. I have also included the maquette that I made out of paper, in order to get a sense of how to create the form for my composition in my final piece. These few steps that I took before beginning constructing my final piece gave me the confidence to begin as I had a better vision for what I wanted to create.
Documentation of process of final piece:
I feel like my presentation with Katherine and Miranda went very successfully. I felt that we all picked out sections of the subculture of the skatepark and drew from what we saw and had experienced at the park appropriately. It was interesting to see how we all had taken away different elements and symbols from the same place and it was even more interesting to hear about how all of our ideas had developed from where we had started off.
I am pleased with the final outcome of my work, I like how the scoring of the cardboard not only helped bend and shape the cardboard but also produced a nice effect on the cardboard’s surface. I feel as though the final result is successful as it does depict an armor looking piece which was the look that I was going for during the construction phase of this project.
