Another Forgotten Memory

     This has been the most emotional piece I have every done. What it means to me is just so important and special in so many ways, but mostly it is a memory of my grandma. Obviously, not a specific memory as I was only like 9 months when the original picture was taken, but a memory of everything my grandma is and was to me. I feel like I have finally accomplished something special and meaningful and it is definitely something I am proud of. It represents how someone you know can start out so normal, and then everything just changes so much that you don't even know who they are anymore.
     The process of actually making this piece was extremely emotional to me, and I started feeling it before I even started as my previous post states. I first sketched out the image on a large piece of illustration board and every single line i added just gave me more and more emotion. Every mark brought my grandma's image more and more to life for me. By the time I had the roughest outline possible, I was sitting in my living room sobbing for lost time, for forgotten memories, for just being sad about her no longer being who she used to be. It was somewhat of a healing experience and oddly also a growing experience. For the first time in my life, art was a way for me to express myself in the truest way possible. It is a moment I will never forget; not only because of the images and video that remain, but because it was a growing experience for me as a person and an artist.

 

Emotions.

     I have finished my set up for my final. I knew the exact image I wanted to do but once I started breaking it down I am really beginging to feel the emotion of this piece. I really hope I can do the piece justice and get out the meaning and emotion that I am feeling. 

Final Proposal

        What is the concept of your final project?
For my final project I wanted to do something not only to meet the criteria of the project, but also do something that has significant meaning to me or my life. Instantly, I knew what I wanted to do. I have a picture of me and my grandma when I was a baby, my grandma is in very bad condition right now with Alzheimers deteriorating her health. I plan on recreating the picture using colored scraps of paper and then slowly blow the paper away.
        Why does this particular subject matter interest you?
This is very important to me because it represents the affect that alzheimers has on a person and their family members.
        How do you plan to make this concept visible through time-based media?
I plan on recording the process of putting the piece together then also the process of blowing the paper away. I would also like to have still shots of the piece as the paper is blown away.
        What ideas do you have for finished presentation?
I would like to blow up the still shot images to show the series of being in good health and memory to having that deteriorate away to nothing.

Final Footprints

 The first time I started the paint went thru the canvas onto my patio. So I had to do lots of scrubbing.

 

Off to Meijer I went to get a plastic drop cloth to go underneath my canvas one.

 Finally we could start.

 

 Just Because this one^ makes me laugh.

There was lots of falling in the paint.

 And by the end we all looked like this

Footprints

I have a few friends here in Mansfield who have made  a huge difference on how my first year out of my parents house and my first year of college went, and I wanted to figure out a way to put that into an art piece. There's the extremely over used quote of "Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends will leave footprints in your heart." by Eleanor Roosevelt, and as cheesy as it sounds I feel like that describes my friends that I've made here in Mansfield. So to take and make art from the clichéd idea that I have decided to dedicate my performance piece to my friends.

The Piece Itself.
I'm simply going to have my friends take off their socks and shoes and roll up their pants and walk around on a huge piece of drop cloth canvas with paint covering their feet.

I am trying to decided what colors to use. I need a total of five or I may just paint the whole canvas black, white, or grey and then get a bunch of colors as a representation of turning what started out asa bad year into a bright colorful one.

My problem occurs when I try and figure out when and where to actually put the piece together.

I plan on recording from ground level to show everyone walking around and then take pictures at random points in time as the layers of paint begin to build up and shift into different blends and shades of color.

First Experimental Film

     When I was deciding where to do my filming i was immediately attracted to filming in my apartment simply because it is where I spend the most time. But I felt like I should limit it to one area. I ended up choosing my bedroom because I felt like there were more interesting things to film there. I wasn't trying to make sense of things when I was recording since it is experimental I wanted to just go with the flow. Once I had all of my film I had some very random things from socks being tossed into a drawer to painting my toe nails and lighting candles. None of those things did i choose to use though. I chose two very simple films: me blinking and a clock ticking. I manipulated the footage by overlaying, cropping, and adjusting the shape. The audio I started with was just a jumble of sound and didn't really work with my footage. So, I ended up going into Audacity and creating my own sound that I wanted to work with my film.
     Honestly, I was having a hard time finding meaning in my film. But the more I thought about an played with my idea it shows how time just repeats itself and the blinking repetition really plays on that. I don't really know if it conveys anything from my location, but maybe that a lot of my time is spent there.

Sneak Peak

Here's a preview of some of my footage for my film project I'm working on.