Final Project!

As a graduating senior I wanted my final project to not only relate to the finality of this class but I also wanted to use it to reflect on leaving St. Augustine.

I have been dating my boyfriend Tom Bosworth (whose picture can be found in my first post for those interested) for about a year and a half. I met him at Flagler, we spend a lot of time on campus together and all around St. Aug. Since he graduated last April he decided to move to Massachusetts in August so I had to get through my last year of college without him, which sucked. As if the stress of portfolio class wasnt enough, I had the stress of a long distance relationship. 

Leaving St. Augustine (which will happen in exactly 6 days) means a lot to me. Not only am I graduating college, I am also leaving a place a have LOVED living and friends I will miss dearly. And while it is exciting to graduate and I am ready to move on with my life there is still a part of me that is sad I have to leave. 

Aside from the sadness related with leaving there is also immense excitement. The prospect of looking for a job is daunting but thrilling, and as much as I love being in school I am so excited to be out of here. I am going to get to see my boyfriend on a daily basis. I havent been able to spend more than a few days at a time with him since August. 

Everywhere I go in St. Augustine I am reminded of conversations we've had or things we've done, there is not one inch of this town we havent covered. We often spent our nights wandering the streets and enjoying the ambiance that is St. Augustine. 

In order to memorialize (in a way) leaving St. Augustine I created a map of all the places we spent time together. Places that I can't walk by or go to without thinking of him. Places that will always be in my mind. Years from now when I come back here to visit I will still be reminded of him when I stand next to the fort or when I walk down Aviles street. 

I decided not to just make a map. 

As anyone who has been here for more than 10 minutes can tell tourism is a large part of St. Augustine. The tour trains pass by every few minutes, there are tour groups always being lead through the streets including ghost and pirate tours (which reminds me, one time I was walking down San Marco when I came across a car accident that had just happened, there were already a large number of spectators and being that I wouldn't want people watch my body being scraped off the street I kept walking and didn't look, but then I walked past a group of pirate tour guides who apparenty were the only witnesses of the accident, it felt like something out of Seinfeld, the only witnesses were 10 pirates, WHAT) so I wanted to make my own tour map, some of these places are places I take people when they come here to visit, others are just places that are memorable to me.

Currently I have 10 maps printed, I am out of prints for the semester and can't afford to have this printed but I do have my little HP printer which is working very hard to give me as many copies as possible. For the time being I will just leave copies around town (photos to come)

Drawing as Memory

For drawing as memory I thought of memories I have that stick out clearly in my mind, there is one memory that is dear to my heart however I chose that memory for a project in drawing 2 and design 2 so I wanted something different.

During my brainstorming I noticed the absurd amount of post-its on my desk. At the end of every semester I clean them off, the amount of notes I leave my self is insane, but I always have a hard time letting go of them. When I am done with them they are essentially useless however I remember each one clearly and they usually are related to a project that I finished and spent a lot of time on. 

The first two images are a documentation so that each post-it is clearly visible, the third image is all of he post-its dropped onto the scanner piled up and scattered around like they usually appear on my desk.

Drawing As Nothing

For drawing as nothing I wanted to do something that took a long time but had no real final product.

I marked a spot on my wall for a painting and then used a paintbrush and water and slowly painted a picture across the square I had marked.

This fits into drawing as nothing because I used the action of drawing however I ended up with nothing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f0diVo6Nu0&feature=youtu.be

Walking With String

For drawing as navigation I wanted to mark my path for a day with yarn. 

I realized that was probably impossible so I chose instead to walk from my house to the bridge of lions. I used 3 skeins of yarn and was still unable to get to the bridge however I really enjoyed marking my path with yarn. 

I felt that by leaving a path there was something there for others to follow. And people did interact with this piece.

When I was finished marking my path I walked back along it and thought more about how I could do this project again to add more meaning. I want to do it again in different ways by perhaps using different string, finding things I can connect that have a deeper meaning of why I am connecting them or even putting things along the path that are meant to be interacted with.

Drawing as one mark against many

As one mark against many I chose to lay in the sidewalk and block the path of people walking by. I chose to lay down so that anyone passing by wasn't able to see my face and that I was not actually in any danger (unless someone stepped on me).

I wanted to see if anyone would do anything to help me or see if I was actually in harm. I could hear many people asking if I was ok however no one approached me. I was surprised that the one guy sat down next to me, he attempted to get me to talk to him but I ignored him.

Drawing with yarn

I wanted to point out the frustration I feel whenever I walk into the gazebo as a non-smoker. I created letters with yarn to spell out "When the smoke clears..." which refers to the literal smoke in the gazebo but it also has a metaphorical meaning. The metaphor refers to the fact that so many college students life an unreasonable lifestyle that can only be sustained while in school and that eventually when they graduate they have a reality check.

Wood

I thought it the properties of wood and how it can be manipulated to create drawings.

First I took away pieces from this piece of wood to create a calligraphy pen.

I used this same process to create a paint brush.

Next I used wood blocks to create prints.

After creating prints I stacked the blocks up and glued them together to create little buildings.

I created two prints using a piece of wood.

I took a woodchip and painted on it to create a gradient.

Last, I pulled all the scraps together from the calligraphy pen and brush to create this image.

Water

I wanted to show the power of water. I placed a piece of cardboard in water and as the cardboard got softer I was able to push it down further into the glass as the water slowly started to eat away at it.

Knowing that one of the properties of water is that it takes on the shape of whatever container it is in I decided to put it in lost of different shaped and sized containers.

Another property of water is that it is composed partly of hydrogen which with hydrogen bonding is able to climb up this paper towel. Hydrogen bonding is also the reason it climbs up the sides of containers and the reason for surface tension.

I used water to clean my skin.

I put water on fabric to show how the fabric can hold onto the liquid and how it can change the color of it.

Next I attempted to use water to create an image.

Transparency

When I thought of using transparency as a drawing material the first thing I thought of was tracing paper which is actually one of my favorite materials to use in general. I used tracing paper in combination with other materias to manipulate light and combine layers of otherwise transparent things to create something opaque.

First I used tracing paper as a screen to diffuse light coming in from my window.

The second piece I did I used the transparent properties of tracing paper to lessen the brightness of the orange ink. I layered together pieces from a magazine then covered them in orange ink. Next I put tracing paper over it to create a softer color.

For the next two pieces I wanted to try to create an image in a stain glass style. This is something I have  attempted in the past but was never this successful. The use of the black lines and the wood which holds the paper tight helped to achieve this look which I wasn't able to before.

For this next piece I put hot glue on tracing paper. Both of these things are normally transparent and by layering them over each other I was able to create an opaque area.

After cutting several pieces of tracing paper I had all these pieces left behind, I layered them over each other to create other shapes.

Tape

I wanted to show how many different ways tape can be used.

I used it to create replicas of my hand and both of my feet. 

Then I used it to block out areas on paper before painting it.

This was for the same purpose however I loved the black and white so I decided not to paint over it.

Then I used the tape to create an image.

I cut out this piece of a letter that I wrote but never sent. I was originally going to put tape over it to block areas however when I saw the words that were on this piece of the letter they felt so constricted and scared that it made me feel as though wrapping the piece in tape as though its being constricted was more fitting.

Fiber

I wanted to show the versatility of fiber. First I tied a marker to a string and swung it similarly to a pendulum. 

I crocheted a large piece of fabric out of yarn.

I put pieces of yarn in this paper pulling in separate directions to show the strength of the fiber.

I thought about the amount of fiber in fruits and vegetables so I arranged these fruits and vegetables to create this pattern.

I used yarn to create a snowflake pattern. 

This is a sock which was hung with a piece of yarn to create what reminds me of a hammock.

Gravity

For most of the gravity pieces I melted crayons to make patterns.

For the last two pieces I created with gravity I dropped food items to see how they were affected by gravity.