Public Service Poster

The purpose of this project was to create a poster that had a public service announcement, that appeals to a specific audience.

Process
I had trouble coming up with ideas, mostly because there weren't a whole lot of things that were immediately obvious problems that related to me personally. So I thought about some pet peeves, and narrowed it down to bad drivers/driving and smokers/smoking.

I sketched a few thumbnails and jotted some ideas, and then decided to go the smoking route. For research, I found the CPC.gov website that contained some interesting stats about smoker fatalities, so I picked two of the more interesting numbers. I declined to do an action about it, because harassing strangers in person about smoking is distasteful to me, and there wasn't much else I could do that I didn't already know about or experience in the past. Besides, I was afraid I'd lose myself in a rage if I did something like sat down and observed people who walk and smoke, or even just observing people in designated smoking areas. It's a sensitive topic to me.

I decided to keep it simple and use Inkscape (free alternative to Illustrator) for my design software, and tried two designs before settling on one. 

I decided that the purple cigarette with smoke design was going to be awful, and so favored the more classic design with a light blue background.

During the first critique, there were numerous suggestions, such as to try implementing red/white/blue colors to better serve the patriotic approach I was thinking about. Some had issues with the haphazard placement of the text, and some thought some of the wording could have been better. One mentioned not to have "Don't Smoke" since it was inherently obvious in the message. The smoke of the cigarette was obviously bad. There were a few comments stating confusion about the dead heads, but I decided to keep that element since it wasn't the majority.

So I centered the text, which gave it an even more classic feel, and changed "American" to red/white/blue, resized some text and changed "due to", to "are due to". I also changed the smoke to something that didn't look like a puddle. I also removed the "Don't Smoke" message, which definitely keeps the poster more informative than judgemental/demanding.

The second critique was helpful with attention to the smaller details. The size of "Are Due To" seemed too small, there were comments on how to make the visual flow better by squeezing in the dead heads so that it aligns better with the text, and some commentary on how the right-most head was oriented too distractingly different from the other heads, which drew away the attention. So I fixed these in the final draft, and also changed "Are Due To" to "Are Caused By", to make it seem less incidental that these deaths and smoking were related.

Final Thoughts
This is a simple poster, and probably not very effective since smokers know smoking will kill them eventually if they keep doing it. It's willful stupidity, and thus it's hard to do anything but beat a dead horse about it.

I did have a later idea to changed it to "1 in 5 American Deaths are caused by Smokers", to (rightfully) place the blame entirely on smokers and to suggest more that it's not just smokers that are killed by it, but those who are exposed to secondhand smoke as well. Earlier in the process, I also wanted to take better advantage of the "American" part, and suggest how much more effective we are at killing us than, say, terrorists are, but I couldn't think of a way not to come off as manipulative about it, which would lead to the opposite of the desired effect (people rebel against being manipulated).

Good 100 - The Civic Samurai

I did the 100 questions. My numbers were typically ones and twos across the board. The questions required a lot of thought to one's inner self, and generally I wasn't very comfortable answering them, but I did so as truthfully as possible. Some of the questions were hard to answer in that they were a bit abstract.

Apparently I am a Civic Samurai. There's no explanation to any of the types of doers, so I'm assuming it has to do with enforcing local rules and customs. This is pretty much not at all what I am, but I'm guessing it just pulled an average, 'best of', so to speak, out of the range of low-scoring answers I gave.

Fantasy Project

Critique
The performances were quite varied as each of us tried to find some way to interact with each other while still staying in our own element.

The first group seemed to have the most success with interaction, movement, and noise in that it ended up mostly being an arena-style fighting match, and three of the performers had swords or staffs. I especially liked Jeff's balloon pop-when-stabbed costume, because it was well utilized during that one minute.

In the second group, I really liked how Sara acted blown in the wind and Libby joined in as a bird and was also affected by it.

The third group, which I participated in, had two weird guys and one scantily clad homeless girl, and ended up being a kind of dark and scary um...assault. My apologies to Whitney for that one. Nice job fighting back though!

In the fourth group, it ended up being some kind of graceful-ish ceremonial tribute with Ryan doing a dance in the middle and Sarah and Christine dancing in a circle around him.

Costume-wise, I felt that Libby and Whitney's costumes were the most impressive for the amount of time and/or commitment that was put into making and wearing them.


My Costume and Process
My costume was...errr. The intent was there somewhere. The original goal was to be a tribal outfit, but that got nixed somewhere in the process of creating it, and ended up being a comic book villain kind of outfit.

For noise, I cut plastic water bottles in half, put beans in each side, and sealed them up with duct tape. I also put screws and nuts into two large aluminum cans and wrapped it up in duct tape to help muffle the sound. I placed these on my legs, arms, and one on my head.

For the helmet, I went the Pepakura-Bondo route. Originally I was going to make a beast mask, which would merit this technique a bit better, but to cut the cost of time I went for a kind of helmet. Basically, I design the mask in a 3D program, unfold it using Pepakura software, print it out, cut it out, and glue it together. Then I Bondo'ed the exterior and painted it with some silver-gray auto paint I had laying around.

I cut, stapled, and duct-taped the fabric parts together. Honestly, I wasn't even sure if the costume would last during the performance, but duct-tape reinforcement goes a long ways. I was even able to walk the half mile to my car and drive it home while still wearing it.

Mint Museum Visit

I found the Mint Museum visit to be a pleasurable experience. The large yard/garden reminded me of some kind of Victorian Era garden that the gentry would walk through. The building itself had a bit of class to it, and I found the internal structure, while somewhat labyrinth-ish, to be fairly intuitive to walk through from one area to the next.

Wolf Mask, Mexico, Wood & Paint

The wolf mask was a far departure from the other masks in the room. Most of the other masks had human or demonic features. I found this one interesting because of that, and was also curious how it'd fit on a person's head. This feels less like a mask and more like a decoration. Its visual design is unique compared to the others as well, with the tribal painted markings that give it a more from-nature kind of feel, and the style and structure of the brow and mouth and ears are completely different from the human masks.

Mourning Dress, circa 1863

I found this mannequin with mourning dress to be the most visually striking from the rest of the arrangements in the room. The stark blacks and fine quality of the cloth contrast the pale face and hands and make her stand out even more. I think also, this was the only dress made to portray an emotion as much as anything else.

African Mask

I'm not really a big fan of African art, possibly because it's mostly chunky squashed angular people, or otherwise abstract shapes. For that reason, I found this one interesting because it wasn't chunky, squashed, or angular, and I can actually see this going on someone's head. I also like the physical form of it, especially the contour of the brow as it goes from middle to back.

Various Animal Effigy Spout Bottles

I found the South American art areas to be the most interesting, and my favorites were the animal effigy bottles that were in one section of that area. There was just something about how the features were made, the shape and contours of their 3D attributes to make that kind of style, that made me want to go home and create my own 3D digital art using that style.

Project 3: Ecology

The goal of the project was to take and present 20 photographs based on the theme of Ecology.

Proposals

• Life On The Road - Animals found on or around the streets. Typically roadkill
• Plants vs Concrete - Plants in cracks of odd places, in their struggle to survive
• Greenway Ecology - People, animals, and environment on the greenway by the campus

I decided to do the Life On The Road theme, since it felt fairly unique and allows me to present material to the viewers that they would otherwise (typically) be reluctant to get close to. Those small smears on the road were once animals, now just blobs of ick.

Process

The process was simple. Drive and look for roadkill. I only succeeded on roads that were two-lane, mostly country roads that had forestry on at least one side. Even then, it was fairly scarce. I think had I chosen this project during Spring or early Summer, I'd have gotten a lot more material to work with. It also didn't help that the weather was poor most of the week, so I had only a few select days to work with.

I tried to be as safe as possible, so I would park a distance away and walk to the subject, and make sure there wasn't any oncoming traffic while making myself as visible as possible while there was.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get more than 6-7 unique roadkill subjects, so I had to use multiple angles. Even then, I arrived at only 14 photographs to present.

Results

PLAY Final, Reflection, and Critiques

Final Image
My final image is the same as the one in the previous post, except with some color tweaks.

PLAY Project Final Presentation

Self Reflection
I did see some people play with the art by changing the pieces around, but overall there wasn't much exploration going on. I blame it partially on the presentation. It wasn't obvious enough that I wanted it to be played with, and I used a dark blue cloth underneath which gave it a more formal impression. The entire group was pretty awkward too, and there was a general lack of participation/interest going around.

Group Comments
Ryan Cook: Way too much stuff going on in both the presentation and the blog post, which was a part of the presentation. I didn't know how to interpret it. Where's the play? You presented us with a bunch of documents and a laptop and a figure of a dragon. It felt like I walked into a lecture on quantum physics when I was expecting an art exhibition: I neither understood what was being talked about nor did I want to. My suggestion is to simplify. Condense it all down into a few images. For example, you could have printed the blue tone and golden tone images that you had in the blog and then propped them up to on both sides of the statue itself. No captions, no text, no laptop. That would have been enough.

Christine Baulieu: In regard to the digital/tumblr presentation, I find it interesting how everyone commented on the Barbie with her back turned to the camera, where they remarked on the absence of play through that gesture. Granted, I believe the image was intended only to show the change of hair style as part of the documentation, but people interpret such things differently. I believe the theme of play was communicated, especially in the last image of you and Kyra. I think if that image was placed on top and enlarged, it would have helped the overall presentation.

Jeff Cook: This was a little harder to interpret when just looking at it. If I didn't see your digital presentation and explanation, I would interpret it as it being the products of Earth (wood products on trees, Plastic/etc on ground), but not as being sucked back in. Rather as it growing out of it. So more like an appreciation for the what our planet provides for us, and a commentary on pollution. As for the theme of Play, this is a lot like Jessica Stockholder's style of work, so I'd say it communicates it about the same way. I think the only improvements really would be if you could find such a massive tree and put thousands of colorful products in the tree and the earth.

"PLAY" Project

Proposal
For class on 9/3/2014, I had three ideas for the PLAY project.

Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby (Drawing by E.W. Kemble)

1. Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby
• Original story is stark, not very pleasant
• Fox creates tar baby, leaves on road, Brer Rabbit gets stuck in it while interacting with it
• So Instead!!! Depict Rabbit and Tar Baby playing with an object while the fox watches
• Relieve the tension of entrapment -> Freedom -> Play
• Medium: Sticks, twigs, mud or tar, clay, paint
• Scale: Miniature (characters scaled to 4")
2. Bicycle Ferris Wheel
• Convert a scrapped/found bike into a ferris wheel/carnival
• Medium: Bicycle (metalwork, rubber)
• Scale: Medium (3-4 feet tall)
3. Pepakura From Trash
• Using trash found on campus, create a baby crib hanging toy with creatures made using glue and scissors and string.
• Scale: Medium

The feedback during class wasn't all that hot, and Mrs. Rothrock clarified a little more about the project, so I decided to scrap all three ideas.

Final Project - Process

I had no idea, really, what to do. I didn't want to dig through trash or random crap to create something I wasn't interested in. Then I realized something...after all the DIY projects, cosplay, and arts and crafts that I've done over the past 18 years, I had a ton of supplies laying around that I could "find" and go with the flow.

After taking note of what I had (I'm somewhat proud of my collection of random awesome craftsy stuff), I decided to try making the Brer Rabbit and Tar Baby idea, except by making two bendable flexible dolls with velcro on them so that they could toss a fuzzy ball to each other and it'll stick. I also intended to have a large fox sleeping on a backdrop, wrapped semi-circular around the scene. This way, the observer could come up to the art and play with the dolls, pose them, or do whatever.

I began creating the dolls immediately. I didn't need to do any research--at this point I was running a bit behind and so I decided to wing it. However I had a clear idea in my head of the art I was going to make, and I guess the years of crafts made it easy for me to immediately think up the process and materials I needed to use, even though I never made a bendable doll before in my life!

Materials for the Idea

This is the list of materials I knew I'd need for the project. Green is something I already had in supply, red was something I had to buy, and blue was something I scavenged.

• Armature Wire
• Cotton or Workable Foam
• Buckwheat Shells
• Electric tape
• String/Thread
• Magnets or Velcro
• Fabric and Leather

Tar Baby and Brer Rabbit Basic Armatures

I began creating the armatures for the two dolls. I needed wire so that the user could bend the limbs and body and it'll remain in that position. I tried coat hanger wire at first, but I needed something much more malleable so I used some of my aluminum and alloy armature wire.

Padding

Next I began the padding. I found a foam pad in a couch cushion by the apartment dumpster, washed it, and used it as the material to give the armatures form. For the most part, all I had to do was run the wire through the foam pieces I cut out of it. I gave full form to the rabbit, since I wanted him to be light-weight and floppish. For the tar baby, I gave smaller chunks separated by electric tape--my intent with him was to use Buckwheat shells from some pillows to fill the limbs and body, thus making him heavier and a different experience than the rabbit.

It was when I got halfway through the fabric outer layer of the rabbit that I realized that I wasn't going to have time to finish the piece. It was already running me 5 hours just for sewing on half the fabric, even though I switched to the easiest most basic method of outside-stitching along the contours. It's partially my fault since I chose a thick string, which meant a thick needle, which meant it took a long time to push it through the fabric, among other things.

By the time I got to the ears, a new idea arrived in my cranium, one which better served the PLAY theme, and overall was kinda cool to do. I could also finish it in 3 hours instead of the decades long toil that I would otherwise succumb to.

Mah Man!

Somehow the idea came to me to put a silly version of my face on the rabbit (using iron-on print transfer paper), rip off the unfinished ears, and give "me" to the audience to play with and gauge their reaction. So I snapped a picture and then photoshopped it a little, printed off a test copy and matched it up against the doll's head.

A Third Eye

Then *GASP*, it struck me, why not make a ton of my faces so that the audience can just play around with a wide range of "me". So I kept the weird tri-cyclops one, took a bunch of other shots, kept 10 total, desaturated, adjusted levels, and cropped them, and printed them all out on cardpaper, cut them out, laminated them, and then cut them out again. Then I stuck Velcro on the backs of each. Genius!

Anyway, I added some accessories as well. I ran out of soft Velcro backing to add to the chest and feet, but they still stick to the doll somewhat since it's a felt/plush(?) like material. Added a sign and presto! Finished project.

Final Project and Presentation Layout

I am much happier with this result than I was with my previous ideas, and this is so far beyond my original intentions that I'm actually somewhat proud of it, simple though it might be.