Monday, December 7, 2009

Final Reflection

Reflecting over the semester as a whole, I have come to really appreciate process. With many years spent considering the finished product in regards to, not only my own artwork, but also the work of others, I realized how little I had appreciated the evolution of the process alone. With each of the three final projects, it served an omnipotent role as the class searched for their solution to the assigned “problem.” Appreciation of this began last year in Foundations as guidelines were given without the knowledge or the ability to plan of the end product/assignment. At first, it was difficult for me to let go of my craving to control and plan what I would eventually create. However, as the year progressed, I was able to look in retrospect and understand the beauty and raw creativity that can grow out of the experience. This served as preparation for what I experienced this semester as it demanded, not only documentation, but also immersion into each individual part of the process that, when joined, formed each of the three projects. Despite the step toward improvement, there were a few times when I found myself dissatisfied with where the process was leading me and found that I needed to go back to the beginning (or to previous iterations) and consider a different direction for a certain part or the entire project. Searching for a reason to this frustration, I found it was due to my opinion on what I considered to be a “more” or “less” important part of the process as it related to the final piece. As I look forward to the spring semester, I would like to improve my capability to be entirely captivated by each phase of the process and consider each as important as the other. I want to develop my ability to create within each step and not close myself off to considering elements or ideas that I think might not be applicable to the final artifact. Aside from this, I also appreciated the semester’s emphasis on the healthy relationship that analog creation and its digital translation should have as well as inclusion of three basic elements; dots, lines, and analog marks. I am positive each of these will be carried into the next semester, remaining time at KCAI and into my future career.


Each of the projects held an individual lesson learned such as the dot's more serendipitous attempt at communication of chosen words through simple to more complex compositions. (Shown Left).

With the new insight gained from this semester, I chose to provide an example of a line composition that was not included in the final book.


Starting the process with the creation of simple, digital line studies and then progressing into found studies, I found myself getting extremely excited about going into the environment and learning how to incorporate this into design work. Taking the line studies and combining and manipulating them added another element that I had previously left unconsidered. This being: creation doesn't always have to begin with extravagant inspiration (which can directly relate to immersion into each phase of the process rather than simply the end product). There have been and will be many times in the future when I will have to find that meaning from outside sources. After manipulation through available means (scanner, projector, copier, & camera), I searched and searched for juxtapositions and relationships between the created (line studies), manipulated (line studies) and found (photographs). On the left, I have included the process of one of my proposed juxtapositions. I chose not to include this in the final artifact because, although the process was definitely implemented and there were certain working elements, it was simply not able to improve the content of either of my line books.

This may be due to certain issues of position and/or the subject of the photograph in relation to my other locations (i.e. places of shelter). In accord with this third project, I considered many different sketches (from my set of chosen words that related to my haiku). Some of which successfully made interesting marks. ("Puddle" shown left along with "Puddle" marks). Nevertheless, they did not prove strong enough to be included in my final artifacts but were still an important part of the process in achieving the final marks that were included in both my haiku animation and taxonomy.

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