Just Process n Things

I do think my washi is more developed of a process than my moku hanga however I’m taking this as a learning experience

Just some more paper making processes.

American Pokeberries found behind my school’s building. This plants exists year long but only makes its berries in the summer and early fall. Always been really interested in natural dye so let’s see what fruit this bares.

The inside and the outside. What labors do we go through to create what we intend and what same labors create something that was not even in our thought process to begin with? Creating this work cost me more time, effort and reflection than any other work I have made, what with having to retract myself to embroider on YouTube and going back and forth to fabric stores. While I was stuffing my pillow, I realized that I didn’t have enough. I looked around my dorm to see what I could find. A Michigan t shirt, a fleece that I wore all winter, and some scraps from a friend’s past project. These were what filled my love’s labor.

The lyrics of a lullaby my grandmother had written when I was a baby. My aunt sent a picture of a page from her handwritten journal, where she first jotted down the words. Reading this, I forgot about a very underrated but integral part of sleeping as child. As she wrote this song, I take the labor to make this pillow and to think of her, the woman who taught me to sew.

From a few weeks ago when I first started my mapping project in the comfort of my dorm. Since then what I’ve wanted to communicate with this project has evolved and changed in a way that I didn’t expect but I like where it might take me.

Our body extension project was on certain elements and themes from Joyce Kilmer’s poem Trees, and Alan Bigelow’s This is not a Poem. We were inspired by the line “only God can make a tree” and the themes of power and influence. Along with that, Alan Bigelow’s “destruction” of Kilmer’s poem influenced our interest in the idea of creating something and then destroying it. The broader inspiration for our piece is humanity and its relationship to the earth. Humans are influenced by some higher being or God-like force that push and pull them to do certain things. Humanity also takes a uses resources provided by the earth which they then use to create magnificent things. There is also the element of destruction that is brought upon by humans in return. While human creations can be positive and innovative, they can also ruin the earth that they have built on and that they have taken the resources from.

I represent the earth, the Earth with a capital “E” and just the ground. This extension has a context in the greater narrative of our piece however this is also a body extension where craftsmanship is key. As I carried this weight on my shoulders, I had not realized just how heavy it would become once all the bricks were placed on top of my foundation. The octagon shape of my extension was made so that it could reflect the shape of the bricks as the resources from the earth are part of the earth. 

In the performance we each had a seperate roll to play with our extensions. Riley was the container that stored the bricks. I was the foundation that the bricks were built upon. These two extensions juxtapose each other as they both carry the bricks, the resources, at some point. Erin was the hook, that grabbed people into the piece whereas Julian destroyed what people had built onto the “foundation”. When we presented our piece, we decided to do so with a video rather than having a live performance. Although our video was successful, us standing at the sides of the screen as our piece played created a sort of anti-climactic response. In retrospect, we could have performed the piece as our video was playing, setting a timer for the audience to complete their task in. Another thing that we could have done that didn’t involve the audience directly, was set up our performance as it was in the video and stood stoically in the positions similar to the first shot of the video. This would have given the audience a sense of physical space we presented in the video, as well as add another layer to the viewing experience.

A mini sculpture of a body extension made simply with paper and scotch tape

Some quick ideations of our body extension project!

A mini presentation about Rachel and mine’s project @rachelrettie

A compilation of photos that depict body extensions and politically incorrect photos.