bike bike make a bike woohooo.

for our final project we were supposed to create a sculpture somehow incorporating the idea of a bicycle into it, or we could make a bike or something...rees was very open-ended with this assignment and it was nice to have a world of oppurtunity to just go crazy and do whatever my lil heart desired.
unfortunately it took me a while to formulate my ideas into a feasible project, and i did not have the oppurtunity to fully expand my project into what i would have ideally liked to create. c'est la vie, i can not devote all of my being to this one class and this one final project as much as i would have liked to.
i have yet to really encorporate my unique style into my sculptural projects, and its also hard for me not ever taking any kind of class that deals with art in the 3d aspects.
because i didnt feel very comfortable with my capabilities in dealing with this, i decided tp just start taking the bikes we found apart and just dealing with them in a way that i felt comfortable with. initially i started to make a base with wheels and i glued and wired them together. becuase i was a bit overwhlemed with what i was doing, i decided not to weld anything together. however i feel that this decision somewhat crippled my project and did not allow me to really evolve as much as i would have wanted to for this last project.
i decided against using all parts of the bike in my project. i decided to use bamboo against the metallic of the wire i was using and the bike parts. i liked that harsh contrast of materials. it was symbolic of how we destroyed trees to make roads and streets taht we know ride bikes on. all of the bamboo was broken and caged inside the wire. i also like that my design is reminiscentof the old rickshaw kind of thing that people used to get around on, however it immobile. the wheels do not turn, and it is not able to support the weight of a person. i will put more pictures up soon as i can.

http://www.yican.com.au/1935/images/rickshaw.jpg
copy this link to see my pictures...
http://s68.photobucket.com/albums/i31/vinyl_amnesia/SJs/

dafjdkashv important things

the plaster/clay project was a realy struggle for me. i have been trying to make a connection between myself and my art, but i am struggling with this because i don't feel comfortable discussing the subject matrter of some of the things i make. my final piece with the rosary beads and lace, was really hard for me to talk about because of what it meant to me. i felt put on the spot when i had to discuss the piece during the critique. in my mind for art to be successful there has to be a connection between the viewer and the piece, and i failed to pull that together. for me, i nailed this right on the head, but for the viewers, no one knows the back story and therefore it didnt come together.
i am alot more motivated to work on this next proiject after talking to rees and i wish that i had done it sooner. alot of things he's observed from me are going to be helpful with this next project. i have yet to really "own" any of the artwork i've done in this class because i'm scared of trying something and failing at it. for this next project i'm pushing myself to go all out and hopefully it will show for something.

bicycles bicycles....!

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/article2903.html
this is really cool stuff this bike company made, they are huge sculptures constructed out of their bike parts.

sculpt, sculpting, sculpted.

please go here for my pictures:
http://photobucket.com/albums/i31/vinyl_amnesia/
and look under SJs album formy pictures. i didnt get to take more pictures because the camera died. its terribly sad.

plaster casting

for this assignment, i am having trouble understanding how to put together the things that i make into a coherent piece. i put a bunch of things into the clay and made it into a plaster piece but i dont think it is really working. there is no connection between any of it. i used a rector set piece and made paw prints and a random tool thing. i want to incorporate more of a meaning into this assignment but i dont know how to accomplish that. i havent had any experience using plaster or clay for that matter and i'm just trying ti get used to working with it. because of this i am just experimenting with it and trying to become mor comfortable with it.

clay pigeons.

today i worked with clay a bit, i don't really like working with it...i really like my little barbie head with thwe horse body but it didnt really come out the way i wanted it to. i'm gonna start working with the plaster later, i'm excited to see how everything comes out.

heartbeat of america

the dynamic duo, diana and i teamed up to construct an AWESEOME sculpture. it addresses some issues, like identity, war in america, the government, and commercialism. these are issues that every one is faced with and therefore everyone can really appreciate our sculpture.we used many different objects that are symbolic. starting from the outside, the frame is supposed to be like a package, holding everything together, reminiscent of the mass production that we are oh-so-famous for in america.

the inside of the structure is filled with lots of different things, army men, trolls hanging from a little girls bike tire, an umbrella, a car and other things. the whole thing is kinda toying with the nostalgic feel of the old toys, but we used them to also address other issues.

the army men are representing the obvious, and then theres a fish net scooping out the army men, which is us toyin with the notioon that the government treats soldiers as these disposable objects and not human beings with families. its like when you buy a goldfish and you die, you're a bit sad but you can just go run to a pet store and buy another, its not a huge inconvience.

there is also a tire holding up a bunch of trolls. we used this to illustrate the search for identity we all face. the trolls are all different but they are restricted, physically by the yarn tied around them, they aren't 'free' to express themselves, much like how many of us feel during our teen age years.

we all had a time when we have felt suppressed or had something holding us back. whether it was fear of being judged, or loosing friends, or being mocked and scrutinized by others. our trolls are suspended by this fear, just like many of us have. individualism is not something that our society supports, uniqueness is suppressed and regarded as a fault instead of being embraced. we felt as though the trolls show an attempt at becoming a unique individual.

there is a hand holding a nest to represent the nurturing that we all need throughout our lives. this is an ongoing search we all go through. we look for care and love in relationships, family and friends, we search for true love and we search for a higher being. human beings need to feel loved and its an essiential part of life. if we didnt feel loved, there wouldnt be a reason to be alive.
there are many little plastic animals placed around the frame, this is a small and unsubstantial jest at animal cruelty.

my favorite part of the whole thing would have to be the car, with barbie legs, and the stethescope. this was kind of poking fun at the constant need for consumerism in america. the car reads, "heartbeat of america" which i find hysterical.

thats exactly how we treat material goods, without our ipod or our cell phone, our day is RUINED. the media and society place such an importance on these material goods instead of creating an environment that gains happiness from being around those that they love. people make us really happy, not money or material things.

we glued a horse head to the front of the car to symbolize the hood ornament of a ford mustang. we also attached barbie legs to the front mocking the way men think a car gives a certain sex appeal to them. you are who you are, a car wont change that.

there is an umbrella which can symbolize bad luck because it is opened inside, but we used it in a different sense. the opened umbrella inside doesnt serve a purpose for two reasons, one: its broken, and sideways, and secondly, it wouldn't be raining inside. the umbrella is useless but its still there, this is refering to our attempts at being unique through tattoos, piercings, cosemetics, surgery, and clothing, etc. we add these things to alter our appearance and make us 'more unique' but materialism will not solve our insecurities about being unique.

as fugazi once said, "you are not what you own." we can be unique in other ways. the other thing the barbies represent is how we base so much on appearances and barbie is supposed to be the 'ideal body', blonde, blue eyes, tall and skinny. she's like the poster child for the aryan race. its not realistic though. we are all different and apparently if barbie were a real person, she wouldn't be able to walk because she isnt proportionate. its very ironic. another reason we have barbie on display in the car is because the car is refering to america and barbie is sort of an inspiration for eating disorders. barbie is the ideal beauty. we grew up with this tiny beautiful 'role model' and so many girls develop eating disorders becuase they are insecure, and become sick and can potentially die from it, so the stethescope is there.

the final thing in our sculpture is a silvery tube kinda thing leading down to a bunch of colored tissue paper. this is a display of how uniqueness is completely disregarded in our society and because of that, we loose individuality. its supposed to be like our uniqueness is being sucked out of us and disposed of just like sewage.

it looks gooooooood on ya

this is just a complilation of the different combinations of my found objects, i dont know what kind of a statement or literary meaning i want this sculpture to have and so i have yet to decide on one configuration. i'm just playing around with the different connotations and things of that nature. i'm still a bit unsure of what i'm doing. i feel like anything i produce will be very vague and not meaningful. i'm still working and searching for inspiration and hoping that it pays off.

served in fine establishments and questionable joints...

me and alice screwed!

ohh the agony

i accomplished alot this weekend. i went to to home depot and bought supplies with my mom, and also took her dumpster diving, we picked up somethign really cool and i want to use it in this project but i'm not sure just yet. i also got some chicken wire to cover the structure and some other bits and pieces i thought we could use.

intially our idea was to construct something with a ladder climbing up to the unknown, sort of thing. our idea has evolved into creating a sort of control center with a control panel, and two pilot chairs and things or that nature. i feel like i can really be creative using this sort of idea because theres no limits to what i can make.

we still haven't figured out our different parts of the project yet but we will decide soon so that we can really get this project moving along. we had a late start because we really didn't know what we wanted to do and our thoughts were disorganized. now that we decided what we want to do it will be alot easier to figure everything out.

right now i'm collecting images and ideas that i want to recreate in our sculpture. i want to use los of maps and images to possibly paper mache over the structure to create a sort of collage look to the piece. last night i came to the studio to work on my project with alice and it was kind of a challenge because eerything was locked up for the night but we did the best we could with our circumstances. we hand sawed the lumber we had and nailed a frame together and installed part of it on the wall and talked some more about our ideas. i had hoped we'd get more done but i'm planning on coming in a lot this next week to work on it some more.

i just put up some pictures of stuff i liked and am going to try to use as a model...

dive into the unknown.

diana and i went out on the first of many dumpster diving excursions the other night. i thought it was a huge success. we found alot of really neat things. the only problem is--i'm not really sure how to transform these secret treasures into anything. with any luck, i'll have some kind of inspiration, i'm hoping that will happen soon.

bounce your way to happiness.

i was searching on google for some ideas for our first sculpture project, and i stumbled upon this artist--david parker and i'm really diggin' his stuff.

my favorite was this awesome installation project in chicago, he put bouncy balls in a literature distributor to spread some cheer if you will. its a really cute and happy idea and i like it.

here's the link if you want to check it out: http://www.davidparker.name/

easy as 1-2-3???

this thing is confusing.
i thought i was somewhat computer savvy but i feel lost?!?!?!