Ornament and Pattern: In-Depth Project

To jump off what I was saying about my small works and how they pushed me Im really glad that they did because then I would've NEVER made anything like this without all of the transformations that the small works made me go through. I cant recall the last time I made anything this "clean." My work for several semesters now has been organic and I didn't think that I could make flat plains interesting, I hope I did. I kept saying to my peers that I wasn't going to be able to make anything because my patterns were bulbous and I didn't want to just make a funky shaped bag of cardboard that would sit or hang. Eventually when I stared at my wall paper long enough I saw it...diagonals drawing into space. My favorite part about this piece is that it doesn't have a front.

Just as a side note I want to make a pedestal for this from cardboard. Im going to see if it works with the piece.

Ornament and Pattern: Small Works and Exercises

This series of exercises just felt like...forced experimentation, which was a good thing! It kept taking me in and out of the worlds of 2D and 3D design and was trying to mesh them together into one. For the first time in a long time I felt like my 2D work was more successful than my 3D work in the sense that I could grasp pattern and ornament better. I couldn't wrap my mind around making such specific shapes and transforming them, instead I saw it as something flat and when I tried to bring it into my sculpture I didn't give it much depth. This really pushed me.

Pattern and Ornament: Outside Visit, Art and Design in the Modern Age &Visionary Metropolis: Tony Garnier’s Une Cité Industrielle

Maybe its from all of the reading that I've been doing but during this outside visit I felt bad for liking the ornament pieces more than the minimalist industrialized works. I find the craftsmanship in the ornament pieces fascinating and the other pieces just looked like factory work, which most of them were. I understand why art shifted into a minimalist design, Im just a sucker for fancy work I suppose. When I look at art I think to myself "Could I make that?" If the answer is a whopping YES then normally I don't appreciate the artwork as much but if it looks like something that would be nearly impossible for me to do I love it all the more. That is what kept running to my mind during my time walking through Design in the Modern Age.

I know that the part of the outside visit was Visionary Metropolis and that it is something for us to keep in mind for the future and I hope it gets addressed soon because it was a very small section but I have a lot of questions! I think I was expecting more of a Disney feel when they show you all of their visionary ideas of the future in Epcot. So I'm excited to learn more about it. The entire time I was looking at the pieces I just wondered if they were prints, drawing, or anything in between! It was less about the idea and more about the physical work for me.

Meta Assignment #1

This assignment made me think about the way I process how I process. I think I've always known that experimenting was my favorite part.

Ornament and Pattern: Readings, Why we need it, How we see it, How it works

It's strange for me to think that there was a time were ornament was looked down upon. I've always seen it as something that only extremely talented people could do and when I was younger I thought that those who made "simple" looking objects were the artists who were making "lesser art." Reading all these articles however made me feel that ornament is less about adorning something and more about just the market for artist. If an artist made an ornament that the majority could not afford suddenly that ornament was the best but if an artist made something similar that everyone could afford suddenly the object had no value. Still ornament but not treated as such. Quickly fast forwarding to the future ornament no longer was about it's symbols and meanings but we were heading into an age of design (brought to us by the Bauhaus.)

Vic Muniz took my breath away in this article! The beautiful ornaments made with trash? That was simply fantastic. It makes the viewer think about how many things we throw away when it's no longer wanted (reminded me of the the movie The Grinch with Jim Carrey) but it made me think about how ornament again just evolves and changes. Each artist had something to say with their ornaments whether it was about movement, growth, or just being playful. That was another artist that caught my eye, Jeffery Keedy. He didn't want our eyes to stop and appreciate the designs, he wanted our eyes to be running around looking for rest but not finding any. Ornament has changed but art changes constantly so why wouldn't ornament follow along beside it?

Pattern and Ornament: Readings, Ornament and Crime

Adolf Loos's article was very passionate about the destruction of ornament. Loos mentions serveral times that just looking at ornament makes him feel sick. He looks down upon it so strongly and it wasn't just about the ornament but the artist and the consumer had major fault in his eyes. He felt the artists were wasting their time but as long as there were rich people to buy it they would still make their art. For whatever reason artists create they create unto themselves.If they make ornament for money then fine but personally Loos has generalized every artist into that category without taking into consideration that some artists make ornament because it is their pride and joy.

Before I rant on Loos's take on the separation of classes I will say that I appreciated the fact that the woman who were making lace were mentioned as people who never got what they should've been paid. What they were doing was art but people did not see it as such. Shoemakers were also mentioned and how the holes in his shoes were his adornment...that is something I found kind of beautiful. Now back to the rant, Loos mentions several times how ornament separates the rich from the poor because the poor can't afford such luxury but this is a foolish statement because with or without ornament there will still be a division in class. Isn't it ok for someone who is poor to want to save up and buy themselves something that they find aestheticly pleasing? It is mentioned in the article that things that are adorned do not last as long as something simple and although that may be the case for most utilitarian  objects it doesn't have to be for everything. He even goes as far to say that an adorned plate makes him not want to eat his food. This man is clearly someone who will not budge on their opinion.

(All in all this was a very fun article.)

Pattern and Ornament: Readings, Ivins, William M. ""Ornament" and the Sources of Design in the Decorative Arts."

I don't think Im going to be the only one who says that is article was making me go back and re-read, re-read, and re-read again. It had so many layers of information with each new person, where they were from or where their art style came from,type of craft, it was just a lot to take in and process. To begin with I saw the pictures of each artist's work that was placed in the center but its just not enough for me to appreciate the intricate works that the article kept talking about. They spoke about engraving silver vessels, hand graving copper plates, how they did works on steel, and something as different as crafting a spoon. But the article itself drags on and on and repeats the same descriptions in different ways to get the point of the pieces across. It made me dizzy.

In the article it states how amazing Jacues Hurtu's work was and by the picture that they showed us in the middle of the page I did think it was pretty but not as "genius" as they described. It made me look up some of his works and although they were nice I think that the other artists mentioned, such as Pierre Marchant, did just as good of a job. While I was looking at Hurtu's prints for the most part they have a very similar lay out: something large in the center, four bold designs surrounding the center, and flower-like designs.

Honestly all these works remind me of those popular Zen Tangle books that have become super popular now. They're like coloring books for adults. The designs are intricate and use negative space and dark areas to bring the viewers eyes around the piece. I think I would've been more interested in the pieces if I hadnt seen flat drawings of the designs but rather how they looked on the plates and pieces of jewelry that they kept describing.

My favorite line in the article is at the end saying "for however much we may tug at the straps of our fashionable French boots, all that we do thereby is to prove the more conclusively the the process of certain logical types are alien to us." I believe that says a great deal on how they embrace their creativity. They're proud to think outside of the box.