Head Puzzle Figured Out

Roses by any other name smell as sweet...

For "what to do with a dozen roses," we talked about the significance of the roses and thought about different ways we could present roses. In our group, one rose was wrapped in wire, and another was burned. I used fresh petals to stain a drawing of a rose I made a purplish color. I also tried to paint a picture of a rose using crushed petals and leaves mixed with egg yolk, like egg tempera. It really didn't turn into paint; it just glued the petals and leaves to the paper. The first class we cut out words and pictures dealing with love from books. Later on we merged the book project with the rose idea by creating collages with the words of love with pictures of roses. For my collage, I placed the words and pictures of love around a picture of roses. I then used string to link some of the words. I'm trying to dye a white rose red at home by putting it in water dyed with food coloring. We are going to talk about how we will do the installation; where we might put it and what materials we might use.
-- Jenna Boyles, Frazier High School, Fayette County

Rose by Chelsea

Hannah working / collage

Jenna working / collage

Kevin working

Rose working

Ryan's altered rose / Ryan altering rose

Kevin's rose (made from leaves of a rose)

James burning a rose

James burning a rose (detail)

Eileen working on rose with hot glue gun

Chelsea's rose and hammer

Danielle wrapping a rose with wire

Gretchen's rose

Gretchen stitching a rose

An installation by L'ubo Stacho

I was just looking at the past exhibits at the Mattress Factory, and I found
an installation by L'ubo Stacho.
His installation used clotheslines, and it may be a source of inspiration for our piece. You can find his installation
under Past Exhibitions: 1995 Artists of Central and Eastern Europe.
http://mattress.org/index.cfm?event=ShowArtist&eid=16&id=25&c=Past

-Kevin

Head / Puzzle Grid

Thinking About Projects

Class on Saturday was really productive in decision making. The bust, piece ideas, altered clothes, and zines sound like they will work really well together. I've been doing some brainstorming for my clothes, puzzle piece, and zine. It's really hard to keep some new ideas going for each part, but I want mine to have a subtle similarity to them all. It's a hard balance to keep!

The zine seems to be the easiest for me since I have a bunch of writing pieces lying around my room. I even found some homemade paper from the Children's Museum that I have been saving. I also have a mini-book that unfolds so I might use that for my basic pages. So many options on what to put inside, though!

For the puzzle piece, I was thinking of covering the entire piece with "aged" newspaper clippings and obituaries, contrasting the happy with the sad. Then I wanted to do a really light water color painting effect over that. I wanted to layer my own calligraphy writing in with some other found objects that I save like pressed flowers and bottle caps. But I think that it might be too cliche since it's like a cheesy self-portrait.

What are you guys thinking for your puzzle pieces? Are they along the same lines or something radically different?

Materials

From Eileen
Saturday January 21
9:40 am

I have talked to a few of you individualy and I know some of you already plan to bring things in to class today but for those of you who have missed class or are not sure what you could bring here are some ideas. (feel free to add)
 
Clothesline project 
clothes
clothespins
hankerchiefs
skarves
gloves
hats
 
Zine Project
special paper or fabric (the mf has a lot)
photos
poetry
any writing really
any collaging materials
 
Puzzle Project
(nothing yet, until we get the pieces cut)
but keep brainstorming!
 
Rose project
(the MF will provide all materials needed for this project)
 

I think at some point today we should come up with a materials list this will be very helpful in order to know what we have enough of and what we dont have any of.

Response from Kevin

This is my response to the blog. I tried to publish my entry on the
site, but it did not work. I agree with Jenna that the audience should not
be permitted to manipulate the clothes on the clothesline. Initially I had
a vision for work on the fire escape, but now I see that this would deviate
from the idea. I do believe that duplicate pieces should be hidden in the
museum. I think that this relates to the concept of identity, and how
difficult it is to discover someone’s inner being. You must search for the
pieces of a person (usually they are hidden) to truly understand them. As
you get to know someone, you see small fragments of who they truly are. As
you begin to look for the pieces you find more and more. I think that this
concept works with the viewer seeing a puzzle piece, and then being
intrigued to look deeper. I hope that I explained that well enough.
As far as what our pieces should combine to form, I first thought of a
flowing dress. Thinking more about our theme, it seems that it should be
the outline of a human bust. It makes sense to have the pieces form the
person (maybe that’s too obvious and cliche). Maybe a piece should be
missing, signifying that a puzzle is never complete. There are always
pieces of your inner self that no one will ever know, and there is always
room for the puzzle to grow. My question is how many layers of clotheslines
should we have leading into the puzzle? Should the layers become more
manipulated as they approach the inside (keeping with the theme of a
presentable, normal facade)?

I’ll see you on saturday,
Kevin

Furthering Ideas

These ideas sound great. I agree with Jenna that the piece needs to stay in one area and not require so much audience participation. As lame as this may sound, you can't trust people, even at a swanky museum like the Mattress Factory. Edie Tsong's piece is a good example of how a good idea can go wrong when people start to mess with the artwork a little too much. By keeping the participation in the realms of light touching of the zines in the pockets (if we go that route) then that should be enough. I'm not a big fan of scavenger hunts or surveys.

Are we still thinking about the lobby as the main place for the exhibit? Or are we thinking a different place in the museum?

~Gretchen

Ok, my computer's being crappy. It said that there was an error when I got invited to the blog and I'd need invited again, but apparently there was no error and I'm part of the blog. So here's my opinon. I'm all for the clotheslines infront of the puzzle idea. The puzzle is good, but I think that it needs to form something when it's all connected, like the outline of a person or a book or something. It would just make more sense if all the pieces came together to make something. That's just what puzzles do. As for public interaction, I don't think they should be able to mess with the clothes on the line, like cut them up or manipulate them. If it represents physical appearance, it doesn't make sense to change it. You don't go up to people on the street and say, "I don't like your shirt" and start cutting it up. Besides, if I bring in some of my clothes (some of which are already manipulated by me), I don't want people screwing with them. It's like respect my physical appearance (dont judge a book by it's cover) dont try to change me. I think that a good way for the public to interact would be the blank puzzle piece idea or have white t shirts available (instead of a box of old clothes) that they can manipulate and hang up. That way the project grows, but our work isn't messed with. Not finished yet, hold on. Having puzzle pieces around the museum is a bad idea in my opinion. The installation would be more effective it was all together in just the lobby. Why have pieces laying around randomly? If I were a viewer, I'd be confused and wouldn't like the fact that they aren't together. The same goes for clothes in the fire escape or stairwell. First of all, the weather would ruin the clothes. Why would they be out there anyway? How would that tie into the main idea of physical/inner image? Is that the main idea? Is it messages in communications and exploding the book? If so, theres communication involved in the clothes covering the puzzle. It could be a metaphor for a book: the cover is the clothes and the puzzle would be the text. That's why I think the puzzle needs to form something other than another puzzle piece. The zine would be part of the book/communication idea as well and if the pages correlate with the puzzle pieces and the zines are in pockets of the clothes, it would show how inner image/personality shows through in what we carry with us or read. Ok, theres my outlook on the whole project. No clothes manip. unless white t's, one place for the installation, and the puzzle should create a form. Sorry that was so long, but I had to do it lol. I just mean for the ideas we presented yesters to be reconsidered a little before we start.
-Jenna

IDEAS FLOW like 3 Rivers

WOW! I was really impressed by the ideas you all came up with yesterday.
Really, great. I am looking forward to seeing how they develop into an
installation. If anyone wants to post some of them up on this blog
that would be wonderfull.