Independent Study Proposal.
This semester I plan to engage in a careful study of the collision between natural forces. I am specifically interested in the intersection spaces between opposing forces of nature and the happenings that surround these events. This will manifest in a number of multi media projects.
This is a rather large area of study, and I will limit my chosen forces of nature to those that enact some sort of decay or dissolution. For example, I plan to spend a great deal of time at the coast line looking at the merging of the sea with the land. I want to capture the rhythmic and repetitive movements of the waves against the rocks and work to mimic this ongoing process though paint. This may take the form of abstraction, but possibly I may wish to work in the field in a more systematic and traditional way.
Another possible set of opposing forces will be the onset of fall itself. I want to go out and explore the inner workings of the natural world as it falls into decay. The death of plant life, the change of color, and the feeling of the oncoming time of dormancy are all aspects of dissolution that I wish to engage. I will have to further narrow this area of interest to make the ideas for focused, but I plan on looking at the movement of things during the autumn. The movement of falling leaves comes to mind, as well as the way humans manipulate the landscape in preparation for winter, such as stacking hay, piling leaves, etc.
In a more structured sense, I want to try and accomplish these things: 1) I want to incorporate natural materials into my work (sand, rocks, leaves, etc) 2) I want to work on non-traditional surfaces (doors, chairs, scrap wood) 3) I want to work traditionally while the good weather holds and spend some time in the field. I will see where this all takes me.
My second proposal is for my senior seminar.....
Project proposal (beginning ideas)
This semester I want to use the senior seminar to broaden my artistic horizons in a number of ways. Jumping from the trajectory of my summer’s work, I want to engage in a series of careful observation studies of movement. In a very, very broad sense, I specifically want to look at the movement of the non-human world in comparison with the movement of people.
I will categorize non-human as anything from wind, leaves, water, rocks or clouds. The people-movements I am interested with are those where humans are directly interacting with the natural world and the various devices they use to do so. It will be intriguing to watch the differences in human movement as the weather gets worse this semester. I am also interested in the ways in which humans assert themselves over the natural world (farming, gardening, raking leaves, etc.).
However, I am most concerned with the non-human world due to the inherent rhythms and chaos that exist in nature, often occurring side by side. For example, water crashes against the rocks of the coast, forming completely random spray and foam patterns, and yet there is some order in the approach of the waves, however marginal.
I am still unsure how I truly plan to engage this subject, but I do know a few things:
1) I want to do a few installation pieces while the weather is still nice.
2) I want to work on discarded wood, such as old doors, chairs, etc.
3) I will probably work in paint part of the time.
4) I plan to experiment with sculpture.
5) I would like to learn how to weld.
6) I would like to sew leaves together for an installation.
I will concurrently working on engaging the idea of entropy, decay, and dissolution in my independent study. I will be spending a bit of time at the coast and also probably watching farmers further inland. That being said, it is possible that I may be using the same sources for the two veins of work, but I do not intend for these projects to have similar outcomes. I do this so that my life is a bit more manageable and so I can spend a fair bit of time at my research sites and not have to worry about scurrying off to separate places for the separate projects.
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