Cultivating Connections

 Super Size Me....

Decorative

Large Permeable

Dense Layered

Repetition & Variation

 
 

Research on growth


I saw a documentary on fractal geometry and the Mandelbrot set.  These amazing forms and colours were composed by a mathematical formula that repeats infinitely.  These fractal patterns occur in nature as well.

Fractal Geometry Mandelbrot Set

Arial view of Siberia

Broccoli

Recomposition

 

Now for reflection on the drawing process and how my ideas of growth have allowed me to discover new possibilities for using the multiples.   Not coming from an formal art background, I found the process quiet foreign and difficult.  I found myself once again frozen with fear.  In the past, my designs have evolved from inspiration from a realistic  basis.  I can see the value of a design process not reliant purely on inspiration.  The process allows for an unexpected outcome that would be difficult to achieve otherwise.  It requires a high degree of abandoning preconceived notions of outcome which I found difficult to do.



  

Flinders Lane Tourist

Being a Melbournian I probably take Flinders Lane and all it's little alley ways that lead off it for granted.  This project was interesting because it made me stop a look at the small details that makes the area really special.  The things that caught my eye were the rows of cafe heater in Degraves St. looking like some kind of urban forest.  I sat at a cafe sketching and watching the crowds of people scuttling by.  I wasn't so much aware of their faces, I more interested by their colour and movement.

If The Shoe Fits!

I quite liked this project.  Deconstruct a shoe and reassemble into jewellery.  I wish I'd had more time to spend on it but that's fast paced uni life I guess.  The shoe I had was and worn old man's shoe which dictated the jewellery.  It had a distinctive "Conan the Barbarian/ Zena Warrior Princess" look to it.

Autopsy

Zena Warrior Princess Cuff

Back of Cuff

Zena's Necklace

Rock Solid Exhibition @ Pieces of Eight

I love, love, love Pieces of Eight.  It provides contemporary jewellery/small object artists a venue to exhibit and hopefully sell the more avant garde pieces.  

Meredith Turnbull has curated an inspirational exhibition of 11 visual artists of non jewellery backgrounds in the show "Rock Solid".  It's always interesting to see the diversity different people can bring to the same brief.  There is a refreshing rawness to the pieces.

The stand out artist for me is Masato Takasaka.  His pieces have a simplicity and elegance and yet there is so much going on.  The transparent plastic allows all the different planes to be seen at once.  I also especially liked Susan Jacobs' magnetic necklaces.  The dynamic quality gives another interesting dimension to the jewellery.

I liked the fact that the majority of pieces were made of non precious materials.  It really annoys me that often value is only attributed to precious materials in jewellery.


http://www.piecesofeight.com.au  

Plus & Minus and Crown Jewels

Choose three objects.  Begin drawing first object for 15 minutes, stop and erase part then start drawing the second object. Repeat with third object.

My objects were chosen for colour, texture and shape.   I loved the colour and texture of the purple feather.  The strand of gold plastic beads had fluidity and shine.  The drawing tool has shapely curves.

Crown Jewels

Make a headpiece out of the "alien jewels" made before.  Queen Amidala meets the Muppets.

Bejewelled

I'm an explorer on an alien world collecting weird and wonderful treasure.  Using my stash of found and collected object I made 11 objects or rather jewels that I have imagined from the alien world.  By the looks of things, I've landed on planet Mardi Gras!

My original inspiration was the weird and wonderful underwater world of sea creatures.  I'm constantly amazed by the variety of forms and vidid colours.  They are like jewels of the ocean.   I did enjoy this project as the materials and colours gave me inspiration and I quite liked my little creatures.

  

It's time to meet the muppets....

 

WALL-E goes to Mardi Gras!

Metric worm

Sea slug in Sunday best

The next part was to make a poster.  I think the vibrant colours made this work really well.

When Life Gives You Lemons - Make Lemonade

I hate not being in control and not being able to plan ahead.  Point in case, our task for this week was to bring multiples of a single material to construct 3D objects.
Trying to figure out the perfect material was an ordeal in itself.  Evaluating the merits of the various possible building materials was harrowing.  What could I buy cheaply in multiples that would be a versatile construction material?  Icy pole sticks? no, too flat, too hard to cut up.  Pipe cleaners? too thin.  Paper plates? too boring.  I desperation I grabbed a packet of plastic forks thinking "that's an interesting shape" What was I thinking! The plastic was really hard to manipulate and no matter how much I tried to deconstruct them they still looked like plastic forks.

The brief was to build four objects: Dense, Light/Open, Vessel/Container and a one using a mystery object harmoniously.

Monument to the Hungry Man

Dense:  I envisage this as a large scale public art monument to the millions of takeaway shops that have save the lazy and and culinary challenged everywhere from extinction; myself included.

Light/Open:

What's for lunch?

There were not a lot of things I could think of to convey light and open using the forks.  In the end I imagined a sea anemone unfurling to catch it's prey.

Sita Ashlet

Vessel/Container: I'm quite please with this one.  I'm thinking of selling it to IKEA as a new design for a minimalist scandinavian chair.

Fourchette avec le Ping Pong

Mystery Object:  Reminds me of the Alien egg pod things that open up right before the creature jumps out.  Needs dripping slime.

Class No.2 Small Object Ideation

After being severely traumatised by the first class I was determined to give it another go.

Task 1. Collage of Four Canapés.

A collage of images, cut up and used as a chef would use ingredients to make canapés.  The four themes for the canapés were, meat, seafood, vegetarian and dessert.  The images I chose were a variety of sea creatures, corals and seaweed.  These have played a big party in my work over the last two years.  I love their vibrancy of colours, textures and patterns.  These images instantly make me feel peaceful.  The secretive underwater world is a beautiful quiet place, never crowded.  It never ceases to amaze me.

Having never done collage before this was quite foreign and I found it hard to grasps the concept.

Dessert

Seafood

Vegetarian

Meat

Task 2. Construct Six Canapés.

Using found objects, construct six canapés with the collages as the point of inspiration.  Building objects came a little easier however I still found making random objects difficult.