Sunday, February 24, 2013

Ideas are everywhere, literally..except...

These past few weeks, my roommate and I have been working profusely on our Design 2 midterm, which includes 6 different abstract compositions made into different formats of artwork (print, painting, installation, sculpture, 3D work). Basically, we need to convey the 4x4" mockups that I posted previously on this blog into a real artwork.

It's pretty hard to find ideas on what to do for these 6 compositions in color, like what materials to choose from and how you are going to execute them. The class professor suggested that the students should go out and do some activities to draw inspiration. For example, my roommate and I went to Orchard Supply Hardware to look for materials. The variety of materials the store has suddenly showered both of us with some ideas of materials and format to work on for this project.



Another example, when we ate, my roommate somehow just had an idea to make an abstract artwork out of food. "I might paint the food." she said. When my friend went to a clothing store, she was thinking to do an abstract artwork inspired by clothes and textures. Some girl from last term even gathered strains of her own hair and strung them together into an abstract composition. Bizarre yet my professor greatly praised the work as well as the experiment which worked well for the project. Last week, a friend of mine inserted colorful liquids into bubble wraps to make a distinct pattern.

You might as well go to a museum of art and get ideas.

So we could basically make an artwork out of everything. You might as well want to dig a landfill to find materials and ideas. Basically my friends and I worked so hard on this project, particularly on getting ideas, mostly by what we see, what we experience, what we do, and everything that's a part of our life. Although sometimes it might sound as bizarre as painting food, making an installation out of hair and what not, well, those ideas are creative. That's what artists do. The more we think out of the box, the more experiment we conduct, the better the outcome will be.

But...

This gets a little too far. I'm working on another homework while, as usual, watching a gore movie. You ask, why gore? Why not romantic/comedy movies that make you laugh? You have such a strange taste. Let me tell you why my friend. Gore or horror movie keeps me awake mostly because of the eerie sound effects and surprising scenes. Whenever a scary or squeamish scene pops up, I just have to distract myself to my work while listening only to the sounds.

Just now, I was watching a gore movie that was...pretty...sadistic (involves body part cutting and what not, but I looked away in the process, going back to my work). When I looked up, a scene where a piece of hand fell after being chainsawed by the murderer appeared on the screen.

That's when that bizarre idea came up. Apparently I took my professor's word too seriously.

I paused the movie and talked to my roommate (who's in the same Design 2 class with me). I told her I've been watching gore movies and she understands because she likes gore movies (she loves them more than I do, stuff like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Hostel, The Collection, etc).

"You remember that our professor said we can make the compositions out of anything right? Anything?" I said.
"Yes." she replied.
"You know, I've been watching all these gore movies and suddenly..."
"I know what you're thinking." she said while smiling even before I finished my words. "I actually thought of the same thing too."
I smiled as well "We're apparently on the same page, aren't we?" 
"Uh huh!"

I better stop watching these movies as they keep on giving me weird inspirations about Design 2 projects.

Yes, inspirations on materials can come out from anything, said the professor.

I took his word too seriously.

Okay! Time to switch to a lighter-themed movie! Maybe stuff like Peter Pan, where I might think of making something based on Tinkerbell's fairy dust!

It's scary how movies can twist the mind of an artist. Or maybe my mind's already twisted ever since we're assigned with this project.

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