Best of the Week: Texture and Light in Design

                The best idea from class this week is the use of varying textures and consideration of light while designing. This concept first came up in the documentary, Sketches of Frank Gehry, where we saw how the architect Frank Gehry incorporates different textures into his work, which makes his buildings unique, beautiful, and very postmodern. It is also obvious that Gehry puts a lot of thought into how the light of the sun will interact with his buildings while designing them.  It is Gehry’s attention to texture and light that makes him such a great architect.

                Earlier this week we discussed how even the V-show set design was dependent on the elements of texture and lighting. The set includes a few textures, but the one I noticed the most was the horizontally ridged metal used in the background. This was a good texture to use because the colored lights look very vibrant when reflect off of this background. The creative use of lighting was able to effectively set the mood for each act and in some cases, even create the illusion of multiple settings/places on the stage.

                I realized after our class discussions that texture and lighting are the keys to all kinds of 3-D design, including the functional art and furniture design that I enjoy creating.  After reexamining some of my past creations, I realized I have already started to play with different textures in my art.  For example on the bookshelf that I recently refinished, I used two different textures, paint and magazine pictures, to give each of the six shelves a different color and theme.  On a pair of jeans that I decorated a few years ago, I combined many different textures including: paint, fabric, Sharpie markers, patches, and embroidery.

                Now that I have discovered that the elements of texture and lighting can have such an effect on almost any design, I can apply them while designing my works of art. I plan on doing more experimenting with these ideas by incorporating various textures in my future creations. I could also include lights in my designs, which I have not tried yet. I am so glad I was exposed to these ideas, because I am now inspired to take new kinds of artistic risks that I may not have thought of otherwise.

Blogging Around 3

Celia's blog: Best of the Week: Postmodernism and The System

Celia’s blog posting was about her deeper understanding of postmodernism. She mentioned how our discussions on postmodernism helped her to understand the message behind Andy Warhol’s art. She also included her view of the postmodern idea of the inescapable system and how it has affected our society.

Comment:
I can totally relate to your new-found understanding of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup painting. When I first saw this painting, when I was much younger, it was hard for me to think of it as art because to me it was just an exact copy of a soup can that I had seen a million times before. I did not see the point of it or understand it at all. After our discussions on postmodernism in class, I now see that Warhol was referring to (and proving) the fact that everything is the postmodern world is corporate, even art. It’s cool that both of us are now able to understand a painting that we had misread when we saw it before we learned about postmodernism.  I agree with you that the nature of the postmodern world is bittersweet. While it is much more convenient to communicate with friends and family through the network of networks we have created, they can also make interactions much less direct. For better or worse, it is true that everyone is stuck in the system.

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Nina's blog:Connection:Grit,Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison

In Nina’s blog entry she wrote about how important grit is. She examines how grit helped people such as Steve Jobs and Thomas Edison be successful and invent things that have permanently changed how people live.

Comment:
Grit really is an essential concept to carry forward. Grit is important for being successful in all aspects of your life. Grit is what gets things done. Like you mentioned in your post, grit is the number one trait that inventors need in order to create things that change the way that we live. If everyone were to give up on the first try, and did not stick to their goals, the world would be much less advanced as it is today and humans would live completely differently.

iMedia: Jason deCaires Taylor's art

 

              While on the internet I found an online journal called Venues: The Journal of 21st Century Aesthetics - that posts archives of all different types of recent art.  (Link to Venues) Under the sculptures category in this journal, I found a picture of an underwater sculpture, called “Vicissitudes”, that was created by a British sculptor named Jason deCaires Taylor (the image from Venues shown above).  I realized that Taylor’s sculpture is a good example of postmodern art for a number of reasons.

                According to the Venues journal, which explained the Taylor’s art very briefly, the statues Taylor creates are intended to make man-made coral reefs in the sea. I think it is so amazing that his works of art are able to go beyond beauty by also having a positive impact on the underwater environment. I think that Taylor’s environmentally-conscious art is a reaction to the postmodern worldview notion that human’s mastery or manipulation of nature can fail and have negative effects. I believe this because Taylor has found a way to create something to help make up for damage done to coral reefs by human’s actions.  Jason Taylor’s art is evidence that in recent years people have been more environmentally aware than past generations have been, and are more willing to ‘go green’ to help the environment in a variety of ways.

                Another intended function of Taylor’s art that Venues journal mentioned was to confuse archaeologists of the future.  After reading this I thought it was sort of strange and malicious of Taylor for this to be an intended result of his work. Once I thought about it for a second I realized that Taylor may have been responding to another postmodern idea, that it is not possible to have historical authenticity in today’s society.

                I wanted to learn more about Jason deCaires Taylor and his unique art, so I searched his name and found another site called Twisted Sifter that had a recent article about him. (Link to this article) This page included further information about his work “Vicissitudes”.  Apparently the figures in this sculpture are children from different cultures. The children are holding hands in a circle to represent the idea of unity among people from all over the world. Another interesting element that this site revealed to me about this piece of art is that it has been somewhat transformed since it has been put under water (shown in the image below, found in the Twisted Sifter article). As the sea takes over the role as the artist, Taylor’s sculptures develop new color and decoration, and show how beautiful entropy can turn out to be.

                Another thing that this article brought to my attention is that Jason deCaires Taylor has become very famous for his work. Taylor gained recognition worldwide after creating the very first submerged sculpture park located in the West Indies in 2006. He is also the founder of MUSA in Cancun, Mexico, an underwater museum.  Taylor’s work has been in presented several publications and he has made many appearances on television. Despite the inability to sell his work that is located underwater, he still is able to make commissions on his work, which just goes to show that in the postmodern world that art is a commodity.

                Jason Taylor’s work has showed me that there are always new possibilities when it comes to art and mediums. This inspires me to continue to think divergently while working on my own art so that I could possibly create works that are as ground-breaking as Taylor’s are.