wouldyalook

[wouldyalook]

I finally took some doodle shots, that are much better than the last ones I tried. I think I’ll try to do more, even though it’s not a part of my final IP project.

In other news, I’ve got some more smoke firing to do - after I finally carved the last batch out of the ice. So hopefully the weather holds up. 

And I think I need to find some boxes better than cardboard. Because the doodles are clay, even though they’re light on their own, their weight adds up when there’s 200 of them in one box. So next I’ll try and hunt down something more reliable.

And get some shelf hardware so I can put that together. 

[wouldyalook]

Not too much is new...

I did a smoke firing the other day, and now I’m just waiting for the rest of it to thaw out so I can dig the remaining doodles out. 

I’ll be able to complete another round of bique>smoke firing before the very end. 

Then I’ll just need to paint the shelf and get some hardware for it. 

Then this week, work on finishing up the final draft of my written thesis, and come up with some wall text. 

I’m also thinking that maybe I should show only in the Stamps Gallery? It’s hard to get a sense of how the doodles will display when they’re all scattered about. But I think that given the numbers of doodles I have/will have, it would be best to be in one location. 

[wouldyalook]

MIDTERM CRITIQUE REFELCTIONS

Had some good studio chats this morning.

Erin and I talked about a few different aspects. One point I hadn’t really thought about was the correlation between the making process and my intended display process. Both are about the ephemeral nature of the doodles. I am willing to give them away, just as quickly as I make them. I hadn’t thought about the connection between why I like doodling as a process in the way that I do, and why I want the doodles to live on in other people’s lives. She also brought some interesting ideas, around the fact that I also grew up in Michigan, like she did. When I was a kid, we spent our summers across the street swimming in our neighbors pond. There was a little beach-y area, with some silty sand and muck. We would dig down to get to the clay under the surface, and would squish and play around with the silty clay. So that was kind of a meta-moment that brought everything back around.

I talked with Jason about display and how things could be set up. He encouraged me to just make as many as I could, not stopping at any particular number. Because their impact is in their volume. And even though there’s a lot of them, they will read differently depending on how they’re spaced throughout the gallery. He brought up the idea that it would be cool to see them scattered around the gallery, but there is a strong impact in seeing them all together as a mass. Which is something to consider, for sure. Will they be “diluted” if I scatter them too much? And in the sense that I want people to take them, I should think about how to get them “into the same space” as the viewer. So that they feel like they can approach and touch them. Without just putting a sign up that says “please touch.” Furthermore, the fact that the doodles are modular and can be placed and displayed in a myriad of ways means that I need to consider how I want to mediate the interaction between doodles and gallery guests. He posited the idea of, what if I was the one to give people doodles individually? How does that change the meaning of the work? That would be a very different form of interaction that would make it live on afterwards in a different way.

So, good things to think about as I move forward in crafting my final plans. 

Finally, I’ll just keep playing and working out ideas until I hit the one that will live the best with this project. 

[wouldyalook]

EXHIBITION IDEAS

So my latest thought is to have one focused shelf display for the doodles, then scatter them in other areas throughout the gallery. The shelf would be about 2.5′ x 1′. 

But I’m also thinking, maybe the shelf should be smaller, and not necessarily a full size shelf. A smaller shelf would draw people in for closer looking. 

I’ll spend the next couple weeks messing around with shelf sizes, trying to find the sweet-spot size. 

[wouldyalook]

quick rough tiny mock-up

[wouldyalook]

Update...

I’ve just been chugging along with the doodles. The making part of it is pretty under control. Just doodle, bisque, and fire. I was able to do a bisque firing this weekend, and I’ve got a lot of doodles to do another smoke firing now. 

Again, exhibition is the question. So while I doodle and fire, I’ll plan and ideate over the next week on how to accomplish that. 

As for the written part, I feel pretty confident. In fact I’ve overwritten, and I’ve got some material to work with in kind of crafting the final writing and bringing it all together into a cohesive argument. So that’s coming along too. 

[wouldyalook]

Exhibition?

So I feel like the final hurdle for me is: how do i want to show this stuff? 

The meeting with the exhibition staff was pretty helpful. It was interesting to me that Jamie picked up on a lot of ideas that had been / are floating around in my head. Because they’re units of a sort, and can be configured in an infinite number of ways, I think there’s probably 50 different ways I could show these things, and they would all be cool. But...

Overall, I feel a pull back to what Anna cleverly termed “sculpture graffiti,” or what I think of as “doodle-bombing.” Maybe I’m being too deliberate with the sand box construction. (Although I do like the idea of contrasting them with bright colors and shag carpets. Cuz that would just be fun.) 

To take it back to its essence-- could I just walk into the gallery, once everyone else has set up their space, and plop my doodles around wherever they feel like they need to take up residence?

[wouldyalook]

If they lived underwater...

[wouldyalook]

SAND + DOODLES

This weekend, I popped over to the volleyball pit on the north campus diag to try out my doodles in the sand, since I’ve been thinking about showing them that way. I think it could be a good material for displaying, but they get a little lost just because of the color of the sand. I’m gonna try and get my hands on some colored sand by next week, to see what that could look like.

[wouldyalook]

some more playing around...

i’ve been plopping them in different spaces around the studios. i like when they occupy spaces that already exist, as opposed to creating a display space for them. in the bathroom, it’s like they’re looking at you, in a place you’re not used to being looked at. it’s a subtle change in environment.

[wouldyalook]

trying out some placement stuff...

i’ve been thinking about incorporating color somehow, as a contrast to the earthy, smokiness of the doodles. i noticed that the paint splatters on the floor created its own kind of complexity and pattern to it, without being consciously constructed. i really like that aspect of it, which i feel jives with the nature of the doodles.  

i think it almost looks like a map of the world when seen from certain perspectives. i’m still interested in trying out what it might look like on a tabletop, a shelf, etc. instead of just the floor. but this is just an experimental starting point, and i’ll keep trying out different things. 

[wouldyalook]

DISPLAY MOOD BOARD

Iv’e been brainstorming some ideas for how I could display my final piece. Here, I’ve collected some mood board-y ideas for environments and formats. They wouldn’t be direct translations, but more of an ethereal inspiration. So now, I’m thinking about how to take the aspects of what I like about each of these and shift that into something I could make/present/organize. 

[wouldyalook]

I.P. REVIEW IS DONE!!

My review went pretty well, and I’ve got some good things to think about and  figure out moving forward. 

My biggest question is how to display the final work, and how I can invite interaction with it. 

I’m going to sit down and brainstorm/throw out ideas for different ways of encountering the doodles. What’s kind of off-the-wall ways can I come up with for different scenarios of experiences the work? From there, I can think about what it is I really envision for them.

I think I want the “interaction” part to be about the ways different people move them around and organize them. People look at the doodles and see different things: families, friends, etc. and group them or line them up in different ways. So that’s something I want to facilitate. I was previously imaging them on the floor, but I’m feeling like maybe that’s more of a table-top level thing. Also, I’ll think about if and how I want to guide the interaction, like with some sort of game board layout that hints at the ability to move them around.

There was also the idea of going into the gallery and photographing them every day, to document the ways people have played with them. 

Also, I’ll research more artists who have worked with multiples, other kinds of sculptural work, etc. to see what I can learn about display and set up. I haven’t really made work in this format or volume before, so that’s the area I really need to think about and focus on moving forward. 

All in all I got some good, helpful feedback, and am feeling good about the rest of the work. 

[wouldyalook]

Excerpts from some free-writing I did this week...

But what does it mean? What’s the point? These questions have followed, and sometimes haunted me as an artist. An Artist’s work is supposed to have meaning, serve a greater purpose, address a specific problem or highlight a tangible issue. By engaging in doodling, I am ignoring these questions. Worse yet, answering in the negative. There is no meaning. There is no point. At least not form the outset. The meaning and purpose comes out of the process. It is not pre-determined in the final form. There is something scary about not having a meaning or a point going into a project. As I have described it myself, doodling is an idle and frivolous activity. And as nice as it can be to allow oneself to become immersed in the pleasure of creative activities, it goes against the grain. There’s a fear of wasted time, effort, material, energy. I feel myself torn between this dichotomy. I hate waste. I hate feeling like I’ve wasted my time, money, or energy. But doodling is the epitome of waste. It’s idle and frivolous. At the end of the day, it serves no practical application. But I’ve also recognized that it satisfies a simple urge to make. To make with no purpose, no clearly delineated intention.

I feel there’s something to be gained by indulging our frivolous sides. By going all in. Not just some little scribbles in the margins of a notebook. But a full-blown doodle-fest where there is no inherent meaning and the only part that really matters is the process, not some polished final product. Maybe I’ve been scared to indulge in that. I think artist-me worries about making art that has meaning, relevance, and importance. I want my art to do and be something. So to be engaging in a process like doodling that intentionally flaunts those things is the ultimate terror. But I feel that giving in to that terror alleviates the fear of it. Strips it of its power. Acknowledges the part of me that just wants to make, that just likes to make.

By recognizing and acknowledging that part of me, I can more fully contribute to projects where I am striving for a polished final product with meaning, relevance, and importance. I’m not sitting there worried about the slacker-doodler side of myself. I can be both things. I can be involved in intentional work, but it’s also ok to have a hedonistic artist side, too. Make because I have the skills and abilities to make content/outcome driven work. But I can make for the pleasure of it. Because that’s the only real reason I make at all in the first place.

[wouldyalook]

DOCUMENTATION

I took some photos of my doodles in the documentation studio, and I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. Once I tweak some technical color and exposure stuff a bit, they’ll be on point. I really like how they can stand on their own as individuals but also together as a community. It offers another way of looking at them, and a way to document them. No sure how I’ll use or incorporate these images in the end, but I’ll definitely incorporate it as part of the process. And probably hire an underclassman to help, because I’m not about to take a thousand photos on my own.

[wouldyalook]

REVIEW DELIVERABLES

Oodles of Doodles: I’ll bring in my completed, fired doodles, as well as finished pieces that aren’t necessarily part of the final bunch but are from my process.

Documentation: I’ll bring photos of the individual doodles, as well as photos that give a sense of how I want to organize and display them in the gallery.

Questions: How can I set up the piece so people are invited in to touch them and take one home? Do I need signs, a little printed take-away thing? Or can it be something about the way it’s set up in the physical space?

[wouldyalook]

TOMOKO KONNO

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a talk by Japanese ceramic artist Tomoko Konno. She talked about her work and how she’s moved throughout her life, from Japan, to Hong Kong, Bali, the US, and now Thailand and Japan. She currently splits her time between the cities of Bangok and Shigaraki. It was really neat because Shigaraki is the town where I spent my three weeks in Japan this summer, so I was able to understand more deeply the kind of environment she’s working in.  

Today, she came in with the woman who curates Asian art at UMMA. Tomoko is in town because the artwork pictured above was purchased by the DIA and is on display in their new Japanese art gallery. I helped give them a tour of the ceramics studio and the rest of the school, and got to show her some of my own work.  

What I appreciate about her work is that she also has a similar approach to her process as I do. She doesn’t plan out or do sketches of her ideas before she starts a project. She just goes into it, letting it develop organically as she goes along. I liked seeing how someone else “doodles” in their own practice. 

Also, you can’t tell from the photos, but she described in her talk about how she hides smiley faces in some of her work. Some of the pieces that are made up of small dots are imprinted with subtle, little smiley faces. You wouldn’t see them unless you walk up and look closely. She said she likes using them because smiley faces break borders; borders between countries, between people. I think it’s that sense of playfulness that I’m trying to access in my own work too.