Mod Mad Crit

I didn't really get anything from the crit, so I'm just gonna assume that maybe people will say something when I try burnin it on monday. I'm thinkin of just goin funeral pyre style, that would fix my standing problem and might add a nice effect anyway

Remapping

So I'm gonna take another shot at mapping out my life and this time I'm gonna just let it flood out as it comes rather than just a list. This is probably gonna get pretty convoluted. So anyway here goes.
Starting at the top, Locations. Places I've lived. So there's been a few. I was born a grew up in Springfield Massachusetts. That's pretty far from Texas, and pretty different too. I lived in a small city, kinda an urban setting. So I'm definitely more city boy than country boy, but I've lived in both. When I was 20 I went on a mission for my church to South Korea. I spent 3 months living in a training center in Utah before I left. In Korea I lived in five different cities, or towns. One really big one, Daejeon. Two kinda middle sized cities, Asan(Onyang), and Chungju. And then Two pretty small little country towns, Naju and Heongseong. So I lived over there for just short of 2 years. Went back to Springfield for another 2 years, then I moved down here to Texas. And if you wanna know why i came down here to Sam, I'll tell you what I've told everyone else who's asked; I have no idea, I just did. So here I am now.
So my Life is kinda split into 3 parts there. Massachusetts Korea and Texas. Who knows where I'll go from here.
Now my family has always been a really big influence on my life. In a physical sense because Ive been around them more than anyone else. In a emotional sense because they were the only ones I'd really talk to about what I was thinking about, but still I kept most of it to myself. Socially, I was extremely shy and introverted when I was younger, so I didn't deal with many other people outside of my immediate family. I still hardly know my extended family at all, and I dont really have a drive to. Spiritually, because of the way I was raised. That has been the biggest influence on my life, as you can probably tell from me serving for 2 years for my church in a foreign country. I was raised Mormon, which is really family centered. The most interesting thing about my relationships is that the moment I leave them, its as if they don't exist anymore. I hardly talk with my family now, and it doesn't really bother me. I don't get homesick, I don't miss people, I just move on. Doesn't really sound all that nice I know but thats how I am now.
I was introverted and shy and quiet but I'm not really like that anymore, so the relationships I have now are alot different than when I was growing up. I like making an idiot out of myself more. I basically act like a teenager now. I'm kinda mature but not.
So lets just go straight into the biggest influence in my life now. That would be religion. So like I said I was born and raised Mormon all my life and I still go to church every week. Lately though I'm more Mormon-ish than Mormon. I'm kinda atheist now too. So yeah, that's an odd combo there. Now my religion has always been the guiding force in my life. That's how i made most decisions. I did or didn't do stuff as my religion dictated. And Mormon principals are pretty strict so there's a lot of stuff I haven't done. So if we're looking at this all in a mapping sense, we just got to the end of the page and flipped it over. Its all blank here now, but there's still all that stuff on the other side, and ya never know, we might end up over there again. But for now its blind sailing. Time to explore and test a little bit. That's why I've been thinking about a lot of questions in life and art's a great way to explore.
So all these mapping questions I don't have a lot of answers for them now, but I've got a lot of questions. I don't know my limitations if I'm not setting them, I don't know what to dream for cause I don't know what I can reach. So things are pretty positive while at the same time they're pretty negative. Its like a roller-coaster, and who doesn't love those. The goal right now is just to finish school and make something of my life. Big Happy family and all that jazz. Animation is the career I'm shooting at, but I don't know what part. I'm mostly exploring that all right now, along with the rest of art, and I love it all. I don't know what I'm good at cause I haven't tried enough things yet. I just keep learning new things and I wanna try them. I'm a little old for that maybe, but who cares? I say just screw it. Things'll either work out or they won't, and hey there's plenty of stuff I like doing in this world, I can find a way to be happy. I just like making things. I don't care what. I don't care how. Art, cooking, building, whatever. I'll do anything, and I've tried a lot. I've put my hand to a few different trade schools here and there. nothing formal, just what I can pick up from anyone willing to teach me.
So I have no idea where this was really going but there's some of my ideas on me. Guess that's what blogs are for.

A Couple of Lines

Making some Marks

100 Parallel Lines - Eyes closed

Attack Page - Flower Petals

200 Lines - Both hands

Crumpled Paper

Folded Paper

Name 100 Times - Eyes closed

Thought to fill the page - "What's the point?"

Gym Class Heroes -"Cookie jar"

Cage the Elephant -"In One Ear"

Gavin Degraw -"I'm in Love with a Girl"

The Script -"Before the Worst"

Red Hot Chili Peppers -"Zephyr Song"

The end result - my carpet is worse.

Mod-Mad

Materials
I feel the form of the overall piece has been affected by the material i chose, which was matches. And the piece couldn't really have been made of anything else because the entire concept hinged on the self destructive sacrificing nature of the source object. The material did pose some difficulties mainly in relation to its size versus my own body. There's a large difference there. I ended up with over 8000 matches on my project and that was still not enough to cover the entire structure. I think a total of at least 25000 matches would be necessary. and when you are attaching them one at a time, that gets very tedious and tiring. Not to mention the amount of time required. I would need at the minimum 72 hours of work time just devoted to attaching matches.
Process/Ambition
The piece went for the minimum requirement in terms of scale, though i could have altered the position of my body mass to make it more compact and thus a smaller object. The final piece was pretty close to the initial idea, which i now believe was insane and stupid of me to try. But i figured that out halfway through the project and still went for it.
Craft
I think the craft of my piece is somewhat distracting due to its unfinished appearance. I tried to alter it due to time restrictions but it still comes off as unfinished. I put way to much time and effort into making the under structure than the skin of the piece. I was obsessed with the piece being freestanding, which i had managed up until minutes before the presentation when the wind broke it. So I ended up covering over all the work that i put so much time into that no one would ever see.
Form
I think the most dominating elements in my piece are texture and color. Just because of the object I used. it was two tone so there is already a color aspect with the object, and the fact that friction is used to light the matches gives it a definite idea and sense in its texture. The repetition and rhythm of match placing also affects the piece.
Concept
The piece is basically centered around the history of the source object. I let the research lead itself and that made the piece. The whole concept of the piece came from the sacrificial nature of the match. A tool that is only useful when destroying itself to give energy to another. This along with the history of burnt sacrifices led me down a more spiritual road with this piece.
Presentation
Well first off it had to be outside for obvious safety reasons, but the presentation was pretty much a disaster. Nothing worked out the way I had planned. Especially in that the piece was meant to be a performance piece and in the end all it was gonna do was fall over. I hope to get another shot at burning it down, even if i end up just throwing it down covering it in gasoline and setting it on fire.

Mapping Lists

Locations:
Springfield MA, born and raised til 20
3 mths in Utah
South Korea, 2 yrs as missionary, various towns
back to Springfield
Huntsville, Current
Schools
changed a few times, same city. comm college, SHSU
lots of different people. Positive on both ends Negative in the middle.
loss or joy
not really existing, emotionally blank
Relationships, always get serious, never work out
different aspects in each
Goals:
Success, family, not anything really clear, just day to day
Choice of career, Major. Changed a few times, ended on art but still changed from graphics to animation
careers thought about but not pursued: cooking, architecture
Heritage: not much there, nobody significant, or only negative
Culture: Highly influenced by religion, swaying back and forth. caught between diff. cultures
Materialism: Like things but nothing has specific importance. anything can be replaced.
Character: dramatically altered. youngest, annoying. shy, introverted, depressed. quiet but outgoing. like large groups, people, unable to interact well.
Passion: no passion, nothing really drives, just floating along.
Fears: not really sure. heights, but not so much after being in Korea.
Everything about me and in my life is constantly changing. Even the bases for thought, the foundations of my life have started to change, so now everything is different.

Serene

Sitting in the middle of that field, thinking. It was dark. All alone. Nothing to do but stare at the stars. Why not? They're beautiful up there in the sky. Balls of light, completely unreachable. Just shining in the sky. Not a single care. Kinda wishing to know more about them. Maybe they could help. But again,  alone. So there wasn't any help to be found. No questions to be answered.
So gaze off into the heavens. It was so peaceful. Serene really. But only on the outside. You couldn't see what was really going on. There was a battle waging right there in the middle of that quiet field, but you couldn't hear a single cry. Couldn't see the standards falling. The years of work being erased. The bleeding. It was all there happening right in that field but not a soul knew, except for the one being torn apart. Wishing an end would come to it all one way or another. But knowing that the only ends in sight were still unreachable.
What ever happened? When did everything start, and how did it get this far? Why are things this way? Why does everyone else seem to be fine? Oblivious to the problems presented. Is that really all there is to it? What happened to start the change from the serene peace and happiness to this constant contention? Nothing can be won. Only run from. Delayed until a later point. Seems like things are starting to catch up. How do you deal with all of them? Where's the way out this time?
Where's the next part of the path to trudge along. Can you really continue down it? Not looking back? Is there even an end? Or is it all a sick twisted trick to distract you from the problems behind you. What to do? Keep going, stay on that path and trust that it'll lead somewhere eventually. Or stop? Face whats there. step off and find another. Does it really even matter? Is there even another path? Can a new one be made?
Is anyone else out there? Can they guide you? Or will you just blindly follow? Do they even know where they're going? Maybe they're blind. Maybe they are the same. Looking for something.
What's the point of it all?

Human Comps

 

I swapped out the second photo for this one,just because i think the white really does show up better then the black and i didnt really look at the photo before printing it.

Man a'La Cardboard....

Ok so its kinda weird workin in the WASH building late at night all alone with a cardboard corpse on the table. Feels like I'm in some really weird episode of Dexter. Hopefully my Frankenstein creation will be finished soon.

Negative Space?

So I don't really know how to take a picture of negative space. So I just took a ton of pictures thinking about it and these are some of what I got. I'm really starting to like photography.

Building the understructure

Here's a good nights work. I started building an understructure for my modular madness piece out of cardboard, as if I'm not sick of it yet. But I've been able to get it to work pretty well and it even articulates good in the hand. Kinda interesting building something that I know I'm going to destroy yet I still feel good about it. I just think of it as a firework or something that needs to be destroyed to achieve it's full potential.

Playin with Matches

  So I was given permission to play with matches. That's a first in my life. So I'm going to need a couple thousand of them for this project I think.

Here's my notes and research I did on matches. Found out some interesting things,like they're called Lucifers in the Netherlands