Transparent House

I accidentally clicked on [Next Blog] at the top of the screen and it lead me to a pretty cool blog. They blogged about this concrete design and I thought it was perfect for some people's projects. I thought the designs were absolutely gorgeous. Whenever I have a house of my own, I want concrete floors like this! The designs sort of remind me of Tord Boontje.
Transparent house is a 3d design & Visualization studio who make these concrete floors. They said in their statement that it was exciting for them to "discover new and uncustomary aspects in objects around us."

MAN VS WILD

One thing that came up in class the other day was blogging about things we like. It's the ground work of our aesthetic and can maybe be used as ideas later down the line in future work. So, I took that as, we should gather things we like because it makes up who we are. It influences our lives in some way like why we buy the things we do, what decisions we make, etc. One thing I absolutely LOVE is MAN VS WILD on the discovery channel! I was a true fan from the beginning and still cannot function when a marathon is on. I mean come on, I named my dog Bear Grylls when I got him Jan '07.

I don't know why I'm so drawn to it but I am! I love watching him out in crazy places, eating disgusting things, building fires, showing you techniques of survival. It's amazing. It's by far my favorite show on tv. I can see a connection between that show and INTO THE WILD (my favorite movie). It's experiencing nature, getting out of the everyday routine, getting away from people, and having an adventure. I want that! Maybe that's why I am so drawn to antlers and bones?? I'm still trying to figure out myself. It surprises me sometimes the things I like. I want to establish my own style. I want people to know my art when they see it.

Blood Diamonds projects

CASTING:

Here's some of the blood diamonds projects. I took some pictures before the critique. I wish I had gotten a chance to take pictures of everyone's projects including mine. I don't know why I didn't because I know there's not going to be another good chance to get everyone together with their projects.

I thought this project was so cool because everyone's was so different even though it was about the same subject.

I know everyone worked super hard and it definately showed.

From the top:

-Megan (top 2 images)

-Sherri (2 images)

-Danielle

-Katy

Hampstead Bypass

Department of Transportation
State Highway Administration

Hampstead Bypass

Route 30 is a heavily traveled main road through my town that leads from Hanover, PA to 795. People commonly take route 30 for their commute and everyday it's at stopped traffic during rush hours.

Across the street there is a huge farm that has been there for over 25 years but the bypass is going to go through part of it. They were forced to sell their property to the bypass and housing developments. It's such a shame to see farms, fields, and woods buldozed for this road. It's all happened in the last two years but now it's really underway.

This picture is from the MDSHA website of part of the area

right near my house. They've built this part as an underpass

of a road I travel all the time. It seemed so bizarre to drive

over all the time.

watch dog

BEAR even came out with me to see a closer look at the cows.

Being an artist, I feel like you notice beautiful things in objects that would seem just ordinary. Just walking around, I notice myself constantly taking a mental note of interesting things. This particular day I had my camera but i don't most days.

The chain on the gate reminded me of my blood diamonds chain. I love the mix of the delicate, sharp chain and the chunky, thick chain especially against the texture of the wood post. I didn't realize that I had caught some of the red gate in the background but I think it's really nice.

The sky that day had a cool pattern left from the airplanes.

This old pile of hay left out was even cool to me.

more pictures:

While doing some research for the ART413 project, I found out alot of distrubing information about beef regulations (or lack there of) in the US. It really makes me happy when I eat steak from John's farm because I know what they were fed and how they were raised. Although, it's a little weird to know you're eating Floppy. Cattle from large commerical ranches are pumped up with all sorts of medicine and are raised in horrible conditions. There's information out there about the beef you buy from the groccery store that's shocking and I had to stop reading it.

(top) view from the pasture (left) view of the pond (right) one of the corn fields

more cow pics

More cow pictures from the farm:

The cow crossing signs that inspired mine and Whitney's project are a symbol of industry over riding nature.

Where ever there are cow crossing signs, there are roads near farms. Farms used to be away from main roads and high traffic areas but with the mass building in my area, the "back roads" are now as busy as a main road. The problem is that the back roads tend to have a high speed limit than the main and are windy and narrow. People fly down the road and cut corners without thinking. I was going to take my picture with a cow crossing sign near by my house but the road it's on is too dangerous.

Man & Nature

I took this picture while walking around the farm but I thought it was a really cool subjects, barbed wire and a thorn bush.
[one of nature's defense mechanism + man's version]

Farm inspiration

As a creative caffine for myself, I decided to go around and take pictures around my boyfriend's family farm. They have a hobby farm because it's not their main source of income, they have a good amount of cattle and grow a lot of their own produce. I spend any free time I have, here. I love it because it's beautiful and peaceful.

Females cows have horns too! It's not just the bulls that have horns. I didn't realize this fact until i was pointed out that i was very wrong. Ever seen the animated movie Barynard? Ever notice anything strange?? ... the male characters have utters!... that's so wrong.

new blog to check out

http://rust-belt.org/blog/

"We hope that our research will be useful to other designers and help to create a more transparent jewelry manufacturing industry. We will continue to update."

photographs by David Maisel

"Managing Environmental Effects of Metal Mining: Interview with Mark Logsdon" Mining Law and Land use, Materials- March 31, 2008

From the website RUST BELT there was an interview with ther president of Geochimica on metal mine issues. I found there were many interesting facts about metal mining and some really cool images. Here are some of the facts:

- gold and silver mines only have a 10-15 year life span (bigger open mines have more of a 20-25 year life span)

- after a mine is no longer useful there is a closure plan: 1.plow any slopes so it is safe and stable 2.some kind of water quality management 3.settle up with employees and town

- there are usually funds left for clean up and maintanence but usually no one to do the job or anyone to regulate the process

- mine closures can cost millions- billions of dollars

-few tailing ponds are lined

chi chi chi chia

Whitney and I finally got our yellow, acrylic PONOKO cow signs!! Yay!

We can start constructing the copper backings with tabs so it can slide in with the grass section in the middle. We've decided to try to make most of them into pins and try a few as pendants.

Since our original design only used the sign parts, we thought about we could use the cow silhouette pop out pieces. It might be nice to make them scatter pins and group a few together to make a herd. I want to wear a herd RIGHT now!

The Chia pet seeds are growing!

I've been experiementing with growing grass since we got the project sheet. I bought patching grass seeds and planted it in a small pot, tried to grow it on burlap, and burlap with a thin layer of soil underneath. The best way to grow that grass was through the burlap with the layer of soil. I also tried to grow 3 kinds of herbs in a pot incase the grass didn't grow. Some are growing but I don't know which kind it is. Then, Whitney ordered Chia pet seeds online and when we got them in we tried growing them on gauze pads - so it would lay flat in the pendants. At first they wouldn't sprout but just recently it's been growing quite rapidly.

So, as of right now I have patch grass about 3 inches high, chia pet sprouts, and 1 kind of herbs. It's a start!

antler candelabra

I found this article in TIME magazine a long time ago, ripped the page out and saved it somewhere. Until now i forgot about it but i found the image again when searching "antlers".
I think this is really beautiful and i love the design. It's very creative!

[Channing Stag five-light candelabrum in brass, $1,995]

i want this!

GHOST ANTLER COAT RACK

- designed by Erich Ginder
-Velocity Art and Design $230
-cast resin antlers

- amazing!

check this out

MODISH HANDMADE --> I LOVE everything!!

I think it would be a great resource to find current trends.

Road signs

As a creative caffeine for myself i'm going to try and take pictures of farms, material ideas, road signs, etc. As i was driving home today i thought i would find a cow crossing sign but i didn't see one. I know i have seen many around home but i just can't think of exactly what road and where.

These pictures are ones i just got off the internet but it's what i'm looking for around home.

(i just had to throw in the Deer Crossing one)

The NEW Chia pet

NYOKKI pet plants are egg shaped ceramic pots with fabric legs in all kinds of characters. [Nyokki = "grow" in japanese] Rye grass is grown out of their heads so you can cut and style. Cute, simple, and very popular with the public.

Grass jewelry

Trying to think of a way of growing grass/ plants out of jewelry was a bit of a problem. I could not wrap my head around the idea. So, i googled grass jewelry. I immediately found La Bague Gazon's website. It even had instructions on how to grow the grass with little men doing the work =)

It all starts with a pad of composte, you wet it until it swells, mix composte with seeds in pot, water, watch grass grow. I think this is how Chia pets work too?

Botanical Paper Works.

I've never heard about seed paper before today's 413 class so i did some research. BOTANICAL PAPER WORKS embedded their handmade paper with wildflower seeds. So once your done reading that greeting card your mom gave you, plant it in a small pot with a layer of soil on top and the flowers will start to grow!They make wedding invitations, stationary, journals, etc. I think a great idea was wrapping paper! It drives me crazy to think how much we waste wrapping paper.
I don't know if this kind of paper will work for my project because it's not as full as i thought but it's still an awesome idea.

Metals Club

Here's 2 designs I came up with for the metals club flyers.

The 1st one was inspired by iron gates and the 2nd one is a flower design. I remember one sale flyer that had a flower in the bottom left corner so I went along with that idea. I kept them just black because I know they will be printed. The title will probably be easier to type so i just kept it simple. The letters are not meant for final use, just there for spacing purpose.

I posted the images onto the Club blog but i'd like anyone's feedback. Any suggestions are wanted!
These are just ideas so please give any opinions.

1st one finished.

1st finished pendant...

copper, liver of sulfur then lightly rubbed off, hammered, with "THIS IS AFRICA" stamped on. [earlier post]

The letters have been a little lost after many attempts to figure out what surface finish/texture i was going to use. I like how it turned out. I want it to have an aged quality to it. I wanted it to be rustic and beaten. I put the pendants on a long steel chain. I think the black chain works with it. I'll take more pictures with the chain later.

If people end up really liking these pendants i'd like to make several and donate part of the earnings to some sort of foundation. Maybe some sort of organization that helps child soldiers, refugees, etc. I already found the group Save the Elephants:

"Our mission is to secure a future for elephants and to sustain the beauty and ecological integrity of the places where they live; to promote man’s delight in their intelligence and the diversity of their world, and to develop a tolerant relationship between the two species."

What do you think? I'd like to see how they do at the sale. We priced work Thrusday for the sale and these with the long welded chain will be priced at $50.

Process

These images are after i cut, filed, and sanded. They were originally for my blood diamond project and I might still use them but i made a few more to put in the sale.

From my research, i learned more about the elephants in Sierra Leone [earlier posts]. I like the elephant as an African icon. I like how the elephants are slowly moving back into Sierra Leone after being forced out by the civil war, are now a symbol of peace. It's slow but there is still hope.

The vulture is another powerful symbol. In the Blood Diamond documentary there was a scene where the vultures were picking at human bodies in the street, like roadkill. They were dragging and plucking the flesh from human beings. It was tuff to watch but it was powerful. If more people could see those kinds of graphic images, i think it would help show how brutal the war really was. The vulture is the opposite of the hopeful elephant, it's a sign of death, of blood. It's never good when vultures are circling.

Why...

There's a conversation during the Blood Diamond hollywood movie (2006) between Archer and Solomon that still sticks in my mind:

Archer: So you think because your intentions are good, they’ll spare you, huh?

Kapanay: My heart always told me that people are inherently good. My experience suggests otherwise. But what about you, Mr. Archer? In your long career as a journalist, would you say that people are mostly good?

Archer: No. I’d say they’re just people.

Kapanay: Exactly. It is what they do that makes them good or bad. A moment of love, even in a bad man, can give meaning to a life. None of us knows whose path will lead us to God.

As we all know by now, the movie introduced the issues of conflict diamonds, mine slavery, the civil war, child soldiers, the brutality of the RUF, smuggling, illegal arms trade, supply and demand by diamond industry, etc. The hollywood movie only touched on these things. The documentary really helped me view the civil in a different light. I know that even that was just a glimpse of what really happened. It was just another example of human greed, lust for power and human nature. In the movie, Kapanay was the man who made a safe house for victims of the war especially children. He believed that there was good in everyone and to not lose hope in the children. Unfortunatly later in the movie, he was shot by two child soldiers.

Solmon was also in disbelief of the whole situation, "How can my own people do this to each other?" I believe that quote can apply to everyone in the world. This is can be a shit world. Just watching the news you hear horror stories of what people have done to one another, to complete strangers and you wonder, "what on earth? How could someone do that? Why did that happen?" Shit is happening in our own neighborhoods as well as other cultures all around the world. "Will God forgive us for what we've done to each other?" -Archer

I read another article about child soldiers where they would bet on the sex of a baby, then cut it out of the dead mother to find out. It makes me wonder is the goodness of humanity decreasing? Sometimes i wonder, what's going to happen in this world with so much hate and greed? My best friend's husband is a marine in Iraq right now so the war is really close to home for me. Their daughter is my Godchild and at three she doesn't understand why her daddy is over there. Last semester i put a quote from Ghandi up on the creative boards in the studio. I first saw it in an ad in the mail but i loved it and put it away for another day. So, in jewelry I i thought it would be perfect for the inspiration wall. It really connects with me now...

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Also, what is going on with Darfur? war for water? I want to know more. I personally haven't heard anything about it on the news but my dad mentioned something about it. I'm going to continue reading about it.

Everyone needs to do what they can to help! Read the news of the world. I'm trying so hard to become more aware of what's going on. I feel like i've lived in this protected bubble my whole life but now it's my obligation to learn more. Open your eyes and stop worrying over stupid little things. It drives me crazy when friends at home spread rumors or get wrapped up in their drama. What would happen if they had to deal with a tragedy or a death in the family? I don't know how they would handle it. It disgusts when they have a fit when their boyfriends didn't buy them the latest thing or whatever. There are bigger problems out there!... worse than we can ever imagine. The sad thing is that i don't think that they will ever care or even try to learn more (there's a lot of people out there like that). Ignoring is no excuse or thinking that issues in Africa, China, etc doesn't affect us. Let's all be more aware of what's happening in this world... we live here too.

"a diamond lasts forever" continued.

More info incase you'd like to know:

You only need 8ounces of ashes to create a diamond... No more.

They really stress that you don't send it all. There's actually enough carbon in humans to create 50-100 diamonds. They can also store some extra carbon incase your loved one's diamond is lost/stolen.

You can also get diamonds made from a lock of hair. Typically funeral homes or animal hospitals will give you this option but some do not.

I looked into this subject a little more and found this artile from WIRED.

"You can do a lot of neat things with dead people after they've been baked at 1,700 degrees for a couple of hours and reduced to a pile of bone fragments." It touches on the Life Gem company, rocketing ashes out into space or being mixed into a painting.

The more i think about it, the more i like this idea. I mean i always thought it was a crude way to RIP by decomposing in a field with a stone to give people a place to remember you. A diamond is a great idea because a person can where it everyday and always know they have their loved one's memory close. Rather than visiting a stone in a cemetary every once in awhile. Mourning is a completely personal thing. No one has to know your ring is your grandmother unless you want them to know.

"a diamond lasts forever"

"Like the memory of a loved one, a diamond lasts forever"

Did you know that you can take a loved ones ashes from cremation and turn them into a diamond? I had never heard about this before until my diamond research. The synthetic diamonds could cost you anywhere from $4,000- $22,000. Only about 28% of Americans chose the cremation option while in Japan it's closer to 98%.

Here's part of the Life Gem's advertisment:
"Love. Life’s single greatest risk. Life’s single greatest reward. Love captures your heart in a second and holds it for eternity.
You have experienced a love without equal. You have had someone truly special in your life and mere words simply will not do."

Diamond and love are always going to be in connection with each other thanks to Debeers advertising but in this case, it's the way to hold on to memories. People who are mourning tend to not let things go. Burying someone or spreading ashes still forces you to give that person up. Having the ashes made into diamonds lets people keep that bond with their loved one. People have to die for the diamond, in this case it's not forced like blood diamonds. You can even use the ashes of a pet made into a stone.

Miel Margarita

I know Miel Margarita was at the ACC but i didn't personally see her. I did see her post cards with this image. I love the vintage, victorian style to it and i also think the subject matter is really interesting. Her trophy series was based off the animal mountings that hunters display in their homes. [just what i was talking about in an earlier post] She is questioning the "emblematic and psychological roles we assign to animals; the way we regard some animals as noble or ornamental, and others as worthless or disposable." --artist statement

"Decoy" 2003
Materials: copper, ceramic base

Helmet: 25x7x15in.Base Ht.: 25in.

I love all of her work! I don't know how she does it.

Her helmet series is about armor, protection, sacred symbols, and status. Someone tell me who she did this??

"Deliberate" 2004
Materials: copper, enamel, brass

Dimensions: 13 x 12 x 12 in

Also notice her mechanisms. The toy section is neat because most of them move.

"Sheepish Walking Toy" 2006
Materials: pewter, copper, brass, wood

Dimensions: 10 x 6 x 12in.