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.