RIVER PROJECT PART 1, slightly illegal i bet

part 1: capturing degradation from the river currents









smaller slab. different area.






AND this whole escapade was captured on video by a guy from the nbc to the 10 providence weather team. was featured on tonight's news - go art!

part 2: retrieval in a few days and then mold-making for glass casting.

Gabriel Orozco @ MOMA

This was one of my favorite pieces from the Gabriel Orozco exhibition at the MOMA (January 30). There is such a strong relationship between his body, his hands and the piece itself.
The first glass piece that I casted in my WS Glass Casting was of clay tiles that held the imprints from our hands in knuckles, finger points/jabbing/gripping/sliding...) Although not as suggestive in form as the Orozco's heart, the piece does nonetheless draw a direct relationship between what was manipulated in the clay by my hands to what was casted in glass.
This piece is an object, much like those mentioned in the documentary "Objectified." But there is something about the process to this final product that revealed my hand - my hands creasing the clay, which in turns creases the glass...


end of wintersession and cleaning out my space in the glass lab, i came across this piece that i had made out of plaster. funny, i believe this piece was made prior to looking at Gabriel Orozco's "My heart is my hand" work. part of a series of plaster work, in manipulating the properties of this material - understanding how it can capture details (handprints, edges, patterns) as it cures. So i had clasped a glob of plaster between my hands and held it in place for a few minutes as i felt the plaster heat up and cure. now the piece dictates a certain movement/way of my hands, it replicates/represents/refers to the presence of my hands. left image is of my right handprint and the right image is of my left handprint.

Drawings

Thinking about the sun and great expanse of the land where the landscape merges with the seascape, merges with the skyscape. How reflections occur on all these planes. The arctic sun in the summer, does not rise from the east and sets in the west, rather it rises at a single point in the horizon and to quote Barry Lopez in Arctic Dreams, "turns over like a whale." Ball point pen.


I poured a capful of turpentine onto the paper and then started to draw lines at increments, vertically to define the edges of the stain. Turpentine will temporarily make the drawing sheet transparent before it dries (it will not leavea residue). This drawing came from the idea of capturing something before it disappeared, as a placeholder to define space (i had also been looking at Gabriel Orozco's Toothpaste spit drawing) I then continued to draw lines, at smaller increments as the stain dried up, so that the lines eventually passed through the stain itself. I then poured turpentine on the same sheet but drew the lines horizontally. I should have stopped at one stain because the drawing has become rather incomprehensible.


Aufeis is german for "Ice on Top" and is a sheet-like mass of layered ice that forms from successive flows of ground water during freezing temperature (wikipedia). The right of the drawing shows a mass of ice breaking apart from the main mass (the lines are spaced closer together). No erasing.

Etchings - lineworks

Went to visit the John Hays Library at Brown University. Perusing through old books and maps on the Arctic. Saw these lovely etchings of arctic landscapes - the aggregation, the thickness of the lines reveal movement, density and qualities of light and space. I am reminded of the 2d representation inherent in architecture, the multitude of drawings to bring to life the spatial experience (of the proposal).
From The Arctic World - its plants, animals and natural phenomenom, (London, 1876).

Daily Wax Studies: Jan 18-24, 2010

shrinking to 1/4 lb. wax.

Jan 24: Wax as a surface for texture. rolled a glass bottle over a slightly cooled wax to create an almost flaky texture to the glass.

Jan 23: thinking about wax generally captures a moment and how to push that toward capturing an action. so what of fabric, a stretching of the fabric with wax poured on top of it. not entirely satisfied with this particular one. more work. the cotton towel stretched only so far and i dipped it into the wax pot at first, but i couldn't build up the layers that way so i poured it on the folded fabric strip.

Jan 22: hand manipulating the wax. pouring out a sheet, then rolling it up and twisting it with my hands. wax was too warm so it was rather sticky and didn't create the clean lines of a twisted plane.

Jan 21: another clay study. reminds me of an egg. the middle portion is a heat pocket, and outer edges cool down faster.

Jan 20: i have been thinking about the whole process of moldmaking - the placeholding of another material for that of glass. glass being the critical material for its optical qualities, transformative processes, etc. in casting, we spend about 90% of the time making the mold/working with the mold in the kiln and only 10% of the time actually spent working directly on the final piece.
that got me thinking about clay, how clay disintegrates in water. what if clay were to hold the place of something for wax to be poured in. forming a clay cup with holes at the sides, pouring wax in increments so that it can build up in the clay.

Jan 19: i have been pouring plaster over crumpled brown paper and the most interesting forms/spaces have been captured underneath. the paper is able to hold the angles in the form of crevices/valleys and mountain ranges (results from the weight of the plaster combined with the solidification of the plaster). i decided to cast this in glass - so... next week is when the glass comes out of the kiln!

i transferred this experiment into wax - wax is lighter and hotter than plaster. i wonder what it would be like to poured 200 degree wax on something that would ignite...that's another day. very similar qualities between wax and plaster. but unlike plaster where i could wait only a few second before pouring another layer to build up the thickness, wax requires more time and patience. as seen in previous studies, wax tends to flow outwards onto the rubber mat - creating those flat tidal pools around the object (what was i was pouring upon).

Jan 18: edible munchies, pouring wax over a pile of popcorn. organic matters can be added into the mold in glass casting - the material will just burn away so what if, the pores, the secret corners, the hidden planes of organic matter such as a pineapple, an artichoke can be captured in glass. or in this case, wax.

making

frustrations in making.
spending days in the plaster lab trying to make a plaster-silica mold and still not even close to being done. it is tempting to say that the previous work were mistakes and get frustrated with having to spend more time to figure out the mold (roundabout way, the farthest points from a to b). but i'm realizing that had i not gone through the process of those previous attempts than what i have now in front of me would not be what it is. more of a refinement of what i had originally visualized for this glass piece.
more about actual mold making later and my wax studies. mold-making is such a MESSY process!
i'm beginning to see how in this process of moldmaking, it is very much the idea of a placeholder be it plaster, or wax or an actual object/surface, then is/is not removed and then the glass is placed in the void. I think this is a direction for me in terms of an architectural technique/methodology, and also holds parallel to the ice, snow and water and how they similarily function.

connections?

This photo of a large mass of ice shifting between mountain peaks (Sourdough Peaks, Alaska) reminds me of how melted wax flows down a valley and solidifies.

Damian Ortega @ the ICA.

I went to visit the ICA, Boston this past Friday, to view Damian Ortega's 120 Days: his work of 120 Coca-Cola glass bottles that have been vitreously manipulated, with allusions to the feminine body. I wanted to see an exercise of a routine manipulation, as i conduct my own everyday wax studies. I was disappointed that Ortega did not actually manipulate the glass bottles himself - he worked with Italian glass blowers through sketches; nor were the glass bottles, existing Coca Cola bottles. I did appreciate the meditations on form as there were categories of study on different parts of the bottle/body. Visually striking, all 120 bottles together on a long table against the wall.

I am finding the wax studies quite time-consuming - there are these periods of waiting - the wax to melt, the wax to solidify, the wax to cool... And depending on what i want to do - pour or construction, i have to plan for these intervals of waiting. I find working with a sheet of wax (wax study/jan 17) less interesting than experimenting with different reactions of the wax, in its capture of an action, reaction, external conditions (wax study/jan 11, 15). From my limited understanding of glass making, there is a similar planning required in each of the manipulations of the bottles - matching temperatures of 2 bottles in order to fuse them, the quickness in blowing the form of the coke bottles and then twisting the neck to a certain angle.

I liked his piece: Nine Types of Terrain/2007, which are clay bricks lined up like dominoes in straight lines, in swirls, etc, on the 9 terrains described in Sun Tzu's "Art of War". These are documented in videos and played on a loop in a dark room in the gallery. I found them intriguing because of the reinterpretations into how to control a type of terrain/space, and the way the domino bricks play forth a movement into the space, falling, hitting one after the other. In the way that we, as architects, contemplate a site, looking to see what can be optimize, what can be controlled and how to design for entry...

Landscape

This week, i am looking at the arctic landscape - arctic region, circle, the character of that landscape. The following is an excerpt from last semester's writings:

LANDSCAPE

Landscape encompasses both the physical elements and human impressions on the land. Landscape is the occupation of the land, a transformation, manipulation, adoration that bears evidence of human habitation. I look to the multitude of uses upon the land in order to examine the extent of our human presence. I ask questions of how we have used the land and the act of destruction – what is removed and what are returned, and what is the nature of that barter?

In his account of the arctic, Arctic Dreams, author Barry Lopez asks: how do people imagine the landscapes they find themselves in? How does the land shape the imaginations of the people who dwell in it? How does desire itself, the desire to comprehend shape knowledge? Architecture has reneged on the promise for the construction of sacred and humble spaces through the destruction of the land. We have perverted the landscape with our consumptive desires and have used without any sense of reciprocity.

I am interested in cultural landscapes – “combined works of nature and man that express a long and intimate relationship between peoples and their natural environment,” focusing on that of the displaced indigenous people of America. Cultural landscapes not only embody a “diversity of manifestations of the interaction between humankind and its natural environment…[but also] reflect specific techniques of sustainable land-use, considering the characteristics and limits of the natural environment they are established in, and a specific spiritual relation to nature.” In sustainability, I will probe the ideas of reconstruction, renewal, rehabilitation and restoration. How does the process of (re)construction inform the act of destruction (re-use)?

I am dreaming of the arctic landscapes. I want to explore the forces of an extreme environment upon our interventions in the land - the last great frontier in North America and of the native cultures that have exist for centuries in that environment. “The Arctic represents the legacy of desire, in such a harsh environment, there are few that brave this condition to live, to build, to take from the earth.” (Lopez, 411) I am focusing on native cultures because I want to build/reflect/reveal/support that level of intimacy to the land that is evident in their cultures.
* implication of displacement and the necessity for re-connections for displacement
* the arctic landscapes to explore the integral relationships of land to sky to water to habitation

Daily Wax Studies: Jan 11-17, 2010

Jan 17: Realized that 3/4lb of wax, everyday would create the problem of storage so reduced the amount of wax to 1/4lb per day. Poured the wax into the rubber mat to make a sheet. Treated the sheet of wax like cardboard and built a typical suburban house - used the heat pen to *glue/solder* the edges of the wax together.



Jan 16: Made coils of clay on the rubber mat. Poured wax so that it flowed around the clay coils, some wax collected enough so that it flowed over the clay coils. Poured in increments so that the wax would settle inbetween the coils, rather than flowing through.



Jan 15: Created a hollow tube from clay, poked two holes into the walls, at two different levels above ground. Poured wax into the vessel, where it flowed out of the first hole. waited until the cooled a bit, both in the vessel and in the pot, then poured again to see if the wax would collect enough to flow through the top hole.



Jan 14: Pouring the wax onto the rubber mat to make a sheet; cutting the sheet into strips and folding, wrapping, weaving them into each other. Then taking the leftover wax strips (and those that fell off) and melting them again to drip over the curled strips, waiting until they cooled and repeating the process until the overall piece became more contained.



Jan 13: Manipulating the texture/form of the wax by pouring into a bucket of snow + water and then covering the wax with more snow as it cooled down.



Jan 12: Brushing melted wax over clay, shaped as 3 eggs.



Jan 11: Pouring melted wax over snow.




Everyday, working with 3/4lb of wax.

beginnings.

Beginnings are difficult. Where to begin?

I’ll start with time and aspirations for the upcoming week. It has been hard to decide where to start, or how to continue from the work set up last semester. Today marks the 10th day of the first month of 2010 and I have 5 weeks ahead of me until this wintersession semester ends/about a full month until the February 10 review. And so I begin here/anywhere:

Writing is instrumental to my thought process; I turn to writing to flesh out ideas, and sometimes to merely get something out. Of my writing, there is not a script, nor a definitive beginning, middle or end but a continuation, an attempt to merely understand the patterns, the lines that I see across the boards. I quote a risd graduate alum: “I want to write about my own work because I want to speak for myself. I want to participate in the writing of my own history.” (The Master’s Written Thesis, risd, office of graduate studies, 2009)

There will be a weekly written excerpt, uploaded Sunday evenings.

I have begun to read Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez – his incredible account of the far northern landscape. I had great hopes that I would be devouring the book in every waking moment but alas, it is not that type of book. Rather it is a book to be slowly and carefully read - certain excerpts are quite wonderfully written. And I have visited risd’s Picture Collection to begin my own collection of images of the arctic landscape as well as picking through several books from the risd library on arctic landscape, art and architecture. I am exploring the arctic landscape both as the site for my architectural proposal for this degree project but as a place that I hope to move to after graduation from risd. I am enthralled by the northern arctic landscape because of its great natural beauty, resources and limited development, and the remoteness/interiority that accompanies that latitude. As well, I hope to work with/learn about the indigenous communities of that region that have a long history and tradition of coexisting in that extreme climate. For my thesis investigation, I want to understand the act of building on the land, to realize that the building does not equate ground zero but the carving into the land, the destruction of the ground is to be equally and referentially considered in the process of construction. And so I am drawn to the indigeneous people’s way of life, in their belief system of the land as alive in their use of the environment and the making of spaces that holds more than what it merely contains.

In the book: A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel, he has divided the book into two sections – the act of reading and the power of the reader. And I have pulled the following quote from this book:

“Whenever you read a book and come across any wonderful phrases which you feel stir or delight your soul, don’t merely trust the power of your own intelligence, but force yourself to learn them by heart and make them familiar by meditating on them, so that whenever an urgent case of affliction arises, you’ll have the remedy ready as if it were written in your mind. When you come to any passages that seem to you useful, make a firm mark against them, which may serve as lime in your memory, less otherwise they might fly away.” Augustine, 63.

I am concurrently taking a glass casting class this wintersession titled Contradictory Spaces. I am excited about this class as I draw many parallel investigations between the threads of my thesis and the process of casting. Glass casting is the process where the glass is formed by molds that hold the negative of what is desired. The molds are used in two ways: molten glass is directly poured into the mold or the molds are filled with glass pellets/shards and then sent into the kiln to be melted/annealed. These negative molds often give away their identity for the creation of these glass forms, i.e. destroyed in the process. This class will focus mainly on the kiln glass casting techniques. This week, we begin with plaster-silica refractory molds. We shaped 2 clay tiles with only our body as the instrument and then captured those impressions in the plaster-silica mold. The 2 molds are then broken apart and reconfigured into a new plaster+silica mold, in a lackadaisical Frankenstein technique. We will fill these molds with glass pellets next week and send them off into the kiln.



I have developed another material investigation, where I will work with a set amount of wax every single day – work to be that of melting into a new form, adding new materials, shaping, carving, cracking, mixing… (in the same vein of Allen Wexler with his Ikea white chairs). This process will be documented and uploaded on the blog.