NOW AND LATER (The project that might happen LATER)

Well I guess our Now and Later project didn’t quite make the cut, but before I knew that I made a couple of visits to the shop. So I figured I would go ahead and post my trips that I recorded. As far as the reaction I got from the lady at the store, well there’s not to much to tell. It was only with the first purchase that I got much of a reaction. She kind of gave me a small laugh and said “just one?”, I responded,yes, it’s ten cents right? and that was it. After that, I guess she figured I just had a craving for a Now and Later every friday around lunch time. She never really acted like it was anything weird with my following purchases. I tried to stop by every friday around mid-day to make my purchase, this worked for the most part except for the one time use of a monday. I wanted a set schedule to follow, and this time was most convenient for me because of classes. The idea of this experiment was good and I enjoyed it, I only wish it would have held up as a project. I think it would have been interesting to see what everyones results were, reactions they got, times they went, and even patterns created by their purchases.

Documentation of the NOW AND LATER
1st visit: one cherry flavor bought at 11:36 AM on Friday the 27th of March.
2nd visit: one banana flavor 1:06 on Friday the 3rd of april
3rd visit: one cherry flavor 1:30 on Friday 10th of april
4th visit: one fruit punch flavor 12:51 on Monday the 13th of april
5th vist: one green apple flavor 11:44 on Friday the 17th of april

The GREEEN BEAN (104.8 WXIT)

STEP 1: GET LAP TOP AND HEAD PHONES

STEP2 :GO TO THE GREEN BEAN COFFEE HOUSE , LOCATED AT 341 S Elm St Greensboro

STEP3: BUY SOME COFFEE AND HEAD OVER TO THE BIG WINDOW IN THE FRONT,

STEP4: TAKE A SEAT AT THE TABLE THAT IS ON THE RISEN PLATFORM CLOSEST TO THE WINDOW

STEP 5: CLICK ON THE LINK BELOW TO LISTEN TO THE 1O4.8 RADIO SHOW!

http://danman8t.tumblr.com

For this project we had to spend a little time at the Green Bean coffee house in downtown Greensboro. We were to sit in a particular seat and observe what was going on around us. Along with observing we had to come up with a way to recreate what we were experiencing through recorded audio, so that anybody could listen to our audio and picture what we observed. I chose to make a radio show for this project. I sat and observed people that passed by the Green Bean, it was amazing to me how interesting people can be. You see some of the most hilarious stuff in the daily.

As a radio special I thought it would be interesting to assign these passer by’s a song, given to them based on their appearance and actions. This part of the project I had the most fun with, just getting the songs to fit what I had seen was great. Each song really captures the essence of the passerby, It help’s illustrate the people’s overall appearance. The listener is given a visual through their own imagination.

A BOOK BY ITS COVER

This project started out in Jackson library, where we picked three random books that struck us as interesting, either because of their cover or title. With these three books we were to create three collages, one for each book, that would represent the books meaning or at least draw a connection to the book. Once the collages were done we would place them in the books and send them on there way, back to the library, where hopefully someday in the near future someone will receive a little piece of our design class while enjoying a book.

The three books I chose were Whale Done!, Six Thinking Hats and The Brass-Knuckle Crusade. The goal with the Whale Done! collage was to represent how the trained whales are like puppets. Since the book is written by an ex Sea world whale trainer, this theme of controlling animals was interesting to capture. The hand has a grip on a plush whale that is over top realistic whales, symbolizing they are just puppets, controlled by the trainers hand.  The Brass-knuckle crusade was basically a book about dirty politics.  It hit on  subjects like mud slinging and just the  overall brutality of  politics.  So I found pictures of different political scandals and riots.  I thought it would be interesting to make a composition of fighting politics.  The six thinking hats was a book about assigning different emotions or acts to colored hats.  I tried to tie these colors into collage along with the famous stove pipe hat of Abe Lincoln.  I think these collages were a lot of fun to do, and the idea of putting them into the library is such great idea.

Tate st. observation

        This project required us to Intensely observe what was happening around us. We were to pick a table somewhere on Tate Street and spend 30 minutes observing our surroundings. I decided to go to Tate Street coffee to do my observing, I sat towards the front of the shop so I could get a good scope or view of everyone.  Through out the 30 minutes I observed the space around me by looking for reoccurring patterns and  noises.  I tried to look for distinct characteristics in certain groups around me.  I begin to predict what their next actions would be, for example, when and how they would drink their coffee or when a group would burst into laughter or conversation.  I also recorded the space around me, like what the furniture looked like, what I was sitting on, what was on the walls and what the walls were made of.

                Basically I covered all the senses and used them to figure out patterns and habits of people in the room.  I recorded sounds like coffee mixers and cash registers, the smell of coffee beans, the texture of furniture, the sound of light and loud conversation, and the taste of the coffee itself.   I recorded all these things on the paper we received in class.  I liked this project because it reminded me of  the over heard conversation assignment.  Except this project went a little more in depth allowing us to incorporate the space around  us.

2-D object/Soulmate

         With this project we had to bring in a 2-D object that we found interesting or beautiful. Then on wednesday we went to the Weatherspoon art gallery to find our 2-D object a soulmate. This soulmate was to be a piece of art work in the gallery that shared a connection or completeness with our object. My object was a Cheerwine bottle cap i found on the ground near Yum-Yum’s. I picked this as my object because it has this retro look to it that just hold’s a lot of character. It’s not like a perfect shape either it’s kind of scuffed up dirty and bent out of shape. These traits that are usually unappealing, i feel actually helps add a lot to it’s character. When we went to the art gallery it took me awhile to find something that i could connect with my object with. Finally I found the perfect match for my object, the Chiclets piece by Joseph Stella. 

        This collage by stella consist of two Chiclet packs of gum that are caked with dirt and a little weathered.  Also the art work was made in 1920 so it really is retro.  Both Stella’s art and my object share this character trait of being worn down a little beat up.  They both at some time were a product you could buy from a store, and they both wear labels advertising their company’s.  I felt that both my bottle cap and the Chiclets share a lot of connections, one of the biggest being the felling of an older time they both give You.

Line Drawing

        For this project I wanted to produce a piece that was much like the exercise we did in class. The goal was to document motion and repetition in it’s purest form. Like the finger movement exercise I tried to purposely limit myself so I would not try to add “SMOKE” to the drawing. I decided to capture the motion of my arm rotating in a counter clockwise direction. I aloud myself only to look at the page to make sure I was still on it. Each circle has about 40 rotations and there are 16 circles in all. Though the circles were placed randomly, I think they begin to make an interesting composition as each circle piles on one another.  Over all I believe the drawing captures what I was after, a record or documentation of motion.

Endurance project

        In an hour we were to create a drawing that followed previously set limitations. This drawing was about pure and non-stop activity recorded through drawing in exactly an hour. Before I started the drawing I broke the hour up into 15 min segments in which I did a different form of repetition in each. The first 15 min. I filled the page completely with circles. Once that 15 min was up I moved onto the next set, where I ripped pieces of artist tape into strips and connected the circles with their ends for 15 min.

        Again as time ran out for that set I moved onto the next 15 min, which consisted of cutting out lines from the drawing with my exacto knife. In the last set of 15 min. I used the cutout paper strips from the previous set. I taped these strips over the lines and drew circles on them. Over all I think this project works pretty well, in the sense it is more a documentation of an hour then a aesthetically pleasing drawing.

18 students walking a 1/2 mile

        Honestly At first I thought this idea of putting a pencil at your hip and just walking was a waste of time. I was like man I can’t believe we are doing this. But now that I look at the result of what we did as a class i’ve changed my mind. Besides the result of it looking pretty interesting, I appreciate the idea of having a set goal of each person going around 80 times with a pencil at their hip. We stuck the course we didn’t try to do anything fancy. We did this by giving our selfs limits and following them as a group.

        I feel like as a whole the class was able to record or document team work through a simple repetitive action. Thats why I connected this project with sports. In just about any sport you will practice repetitive motions to make yourself better at a certain aspect of your game, such as dribbling, swinging a bat or a three step drop for a quarterback. These practiced motions help your team and give you a desired result, like are repetitive motions as a class made a piece of art.

Physical Events (value documentation)

        Using only value, we were to create a drawing on paper that accurately documented the outcome of a physical event or activity. For this project i decided to record the action of throwing a ball against a wall. I stood about 3 or 4 ft away from the wall and bounced the ball where it would ricochet off back to me. The way I broke the shades/values up was through the amount of time In each set, in which I tried to up the amount of throws and catches. In My first segment I threw the ball 10 sec. From there I added 10 sec. to each following set, so the 2nd set would be 20 sec., 3rd set 30 sec. and so on until I reached a minute.                                                                      The values got darker as I made more catches. A few of the sets I had to start over, because The ball bounced weird or I missed catching the ball completely. These misses are documented by my lightest value the vertical white/translucent lines. In the Drawing I tried to document the repetition of the bouncing ball, by drawing the motion it was going through and giving it a distinct size (smaller less catches) and value (darker more catches). I got progressively a little better in the later sets, but I found you can only throw it so fast or hard with out letting it get away from you. I added impact waves to represent the ball hitting the ground, this part of the drawing acted as my smoke.

Value Drawing

        In our value drawings we had to use different gradations from light to dark. Everyone got a stencil in which we used to shade inside of, using no line what so ever. My stencil was an X, I wanted to fill up the whole page by layering the X’s on top of each other. Even though the X’s were laid down in a random fashion, they began to create an interesting composition. The X’s almost start to look like snow falling. Naturally the darker shades come out at you, but I think the lighter shaded X’s provide this background that brings an unexpected depth to the drawing.