Shepard Fairey Kicks Ass!

I've been doing alot of research for the Obama project for Jewelry II, and having a hard time finding my angle in at first, until I really searched for Obama art.   Shepard Fairey is really on the main front of it with his Hope image and now on the same level as Murakami for me, which means he's AMAZING.   I LOVE his work, I seriously can't get enough!  The approach, the ideas, the message, the whole package.  From the street art graffiti, wheat-paste posters slapped across major cities, gigantic works popping up in galleries, and the infamous Obama images EVERYWHERE.  At first when I saw the Obama image I thought, "Ok, I get bored and do that to pictures in Photoshop all the time, and......."  But after delving into all of his work I'm just in love, and inspired beyond all belief.  I always love graphic line, very posterized images, with high contrast.   His subject matters are to my liking to, guns,  I have a huge fixation with the look of guns, and his pieces incorporate many weapons, and are extremely successful, all with a charged message direct to the world times.  I like his style of collage images, whenever I just sit and sketch things for my personal interest its always a mix of things.  I like how he creates hidden layers.  My mom just ran in my room a few minutes ago screaming "Channel 19 Shepard Fairey"  His motives and messages behind his work are great.  He went to a traditional art school, but said once he got out he turned to street art to get an immediate message and response out to the public.    He said the Obama image came out of something he wanted to do, asked them if it would be ok and then it caught like wildfire, prompting the Obama campaign to ask if he would create another one with a licensed photograph, and thats where the Hope image came from, its insane to think of how much of an impact that one picture has made.  That is going to be an icon for time to come.  He's just amazing and looking through his stuff sends my creative thinking through the roof.  I could go on forever, but I just want to draw more, if you haven't checked out his stuff you are missing out!!

AAR : Design Problem 2; Social Design

Sustains:

• Overall form I created with the rings.
• The finish on the rings.
• Variety in the bottles used, not just one works for everyone, like the element of choice there.

Improves:

• The polishing of the cut edge, finding a better polishing compound 
• Packaging: Either a better alternative, or higher quality tag
• More ways to modify the rings.

What-Ifs:

• If the rings were able to be easily sized.
• I could figure out how to cut a bangle from the same bottle as the ring to go together.

Overall I was very happy with the end result of this project and it is something I want to explore a bit more.

Pomegranate findings

Ok so this time I was extremely meticulous with my die forming process; I couldn't afford to set myself up for failure again, so I worked a long time to get my die as nice as I possibly could (and did not use one drop of glue, just roughly half a roll of 3M painter's tape)  Then I started my test pressings, one set in copper, and one in bronze, it took a while to really get the shape going, and sadly 3 of my 4 initial test plates broke through on their 8th pressing (5500 psi and natural rubber = bad idea)  My main problem I've encountered is the top section of the die, I'm getting nice volume in the circular area, but the edges are hard to catch.  So I'm planning on wedging some natural rubber bits cut to fit the die and press with them inside once the form outline shows itself at a standstill in that area.  I bought some rough garnets to act as the seeds.  I'm still trying to figure out all of the right design choices, but I'm glad with how things are progressing thus far.  I think the hinge will be my biggest hurdle yet to come.

Social Design: Subject matter, good German design

Thank you Germany...for your beer and amazing packaging!  So basically I've been chopping off the tops of beer bottles and wine bottles galore to make rings, then grinding, sanding, filing, and polishing like crazy, but I'm LOVING it.  I've also been "bottle scoping" almost annoyingly so, I avoided trying to sneak a bunch of beer bottles from my family get together last night at a restaurant (they weren't very cool anyway)  BUT speaking of cool, I raided Kyle's recycling and empty bottles throughout the house, and found some remnants from the German party, haha, they brought beer, and lots of it, so I found some more fun bottles to attack.

I'm not sure if nuns in Germany sit around shooting the shit and drinking beer, but I couldn't stop laughing, this is definitely going up for design studio.
This bottle had a pretty awesome label, I carefully ripped it off, and its going in my sketchbook.

But the best part of this is the bottle tops, I've found 3 different German beer bottles and they all have these tops, a lot more interesting than screw tops and wine bottle tops that I've been finding.  I've made myself the first prototype ring with a brown bottle like this and have been wearing it for the last few days, but I'm really excited that I found a green bottle like that, even more fun!  I'm really liking this project, and its something that I could keep doing easily as I collect more bottles.  Luckily, there's still some of the beer left in the fridge, now I just need to employ someone to drink it.

SO COOL!!!

Google images is great, look what I found, I can't get enough of this! This is just awesome, I've lately added "cacti" to my list of obsessions. So; coral, chandeliers, and now saguaro cactus.  I came across this a bit ago when researching my current social design topic: up-cycling.  This is a 9' high cactus created from recycled green glass beer bottles, barbed wire, and welded steel.  It was created by some glass artists in New Mexico, Robbin's Ranch Art Glass.  I find it their most interesting and innovative piece, it is their logo created into sculpture.  I really love this piece, I want one, a little pin made like this would be so much fun!  So here's a good example of up-cycling as an art form, and it is very successful.

AAR : DIY/Guerilla Tactics

Sustains:

• Overall graphic quality of the book; simple set up, uniformed writing format/template, visually appealing balance of text and images.
• Quick to the point and concise information/guidelines
• Size 

Improves:

• Bit more information presented in the same concise form.
• Covering coping with the emotional element of disaster as a topic.
• Even more sustainable materials used.
• Distributing more on a wide scale, to encompass colleges as well
• Interactive notes page that could have space to customize with important names, numbers, evacuation site plans, and local help organizations .

What If's:

• The cover was constructed out of plexiglass or hard and sustainable cover with a photo transfered image.
• A large poster, whole page layout version of the book on one sheet, could be given to the agencies I distributed the books to so that they could post it for display in their headquarters.
• I could create a mass scale and send them to colleges that are in "risk areas" for out of touch or those uneducated on hurricanes.
• I could have created a pin to coincide with the book and sent a few different versions depicting various stages of the hurricane along with the books. ( I REALLY wish I would have had enough time to create 20 pins that could have gone with the books as well)

Overall, I'm very happy with the work I did, I feel there's room exploration and distribution of these books that could have many different options, but I'm proud of the end result I came up with.

New York Trip Re-cap

Here's some examples of what really stood out in my mind from New York:


At Moss I found one of my new favorite metalsmiths; Georg Dobler.  I thought his stuff was gorgeous.  I love the color of the metal in relation to his stones (same aesthetic as some of my favorite Karl Fritsch pieces, makes me want to make an oxidized silver piece with a huge stone from inspiration)  The true to life form of the beetles was very nice, but the flower piece was my favorite, by far, then I found the first image on top, which i love even more, I love organic form!
I swear I'm not violent, but I'm kind of obsessed with the AK-47 form, and I REALLY would love one of these lamps, created by Philippe Stark
One of my obsessions besides coral, are chandeliers, and Moss was packed with some great ones, this one was just amazing,  Hans Harald Rath created this one and it comes in 3 different sizes.

Here are some examples from MAD that I really liked. 
Ruth Radacovich created this ring.  I love big rings, and I would kill to own this one,  its almost coral (making me love it even more) I love the whole design; it wouldn't be as successful if the stone was set in the bulk of the ring.  This ring makes me want to cast a bunch of stuff!
Emiko Suo - This picture does not do this piece justice,  in real life it was stunning and so delicate.  The different metals paired great against each other and the hair-thin strings made it very interesting.
Ruth Tomlinson - These earrings were very nice, reminded me of lilly of the valley, one my mothers favorite flowers, the different colors utilized in the rings and earrings (coral reds, and light blues were very nice)  Overall a very marketable piece.
These cut out bags were INSANE.  How you could even figure out to cut them out is beyond me and the great detail that they went to was unreal, so tiny, yet so defined at once, even though it was most likely lasercut it is still gorgeous.  The different color bags were interesting.  Yuken Teruya created this series.
Tara Donovan created this button sculpture,  I liked it since it reminded me of a coral branch from a far.  So anything that even slightly resembles coral = LOVE.  I would never want to make it, but it was nice to look at!

Overall I loved the places I went, didn't love the rain, humidity, or the pretzel that made me severely nauseated all day.  I bought some cool stuff at the MoMA store, another acrylic "diamond" ring and the little Munny statue, I'm looking forward to coloring it in.  

Soho was just amazing, of the many times I've been to NY this was my first venture to Soho, and I definitely need to go back for at least a whole day there, so much to see.  Between the galleries here and there and the one of a kind boutiques were amazing, and I really want to go shop at the Rugby store we passed on University Place.  I love the whole look of Soho, a nice change from the midtown Manhattan sky scrapers, tons of character, and life, and the graffiti alone is reason to go back, I'm pissed I had my crappy camera with me!  And I love how the street vendors aren't hocking fake purses, tourist photo prints, and cheap scarves, but rather handmade jewelry.  There was one vendor who I was in awe of, gigantic cocktail rings right up my alley, he designs some pieces for Anthropologie.  Lots of silver, some bronze, and a gigantic stone, all with their own character and personality, truly fun, but I liked a $450 and $360 of course.   I could not find anything I loved and wanted under $150 that day so I gave up on a pretty new piece of jewelry.  I fell in love with a bracelet in the MAD store created by Xeno Glassworks, but I didn't want to splurge early on in the day, and I wish I would have because I really loved the piece, I'm finally coming around to bracelets, and this one was great!  So New York was fun but I need a weekend set aside for Soho, hopefully I'll get the time soon, definitely before it gets really cold, within the next month or so.