Friday, December 16, 2011

Finals and IP Review

So I had my IP Review yesterday. It was a stressful but exciting experience. I got a lot of great feedback from my panel. I had Franc Nunoo-Quarcoo, Dwayne Overmeyer, and Cynthia Pachikar–a pretty great combooo actually. I'll elaborate later but I'm actually still in finals mode right now so I should probably get some sleep. I'll leave you with a few slides from my presentation:






And a flying cat just for good luck...


Monday, December 5, 2011

IP: Waiting... Reading.

So, now that it's the end of the semester classes seem to either be speeding up to the point where they'll finish with an explosion or are simply slowing down peacefully. IP is one of those classes that is slowing down because I'm waiting for materials I've ordered to come in! which is fine because I'm now using this tentative speed to work on the more theoretical aspects of the project.

I recently bought some books that cover topics/terms that are directly related to my project: Biophilia- Human's innate love of living things and "nature" and Nature Deficit Disorder- a transformation in the younger generation's relationship with nature–one that is lacking. The books I bought are:

Biophilia By Edward O. Wilson

The Nature Principle By Richard Louv and

Last Child in the Woods also by Richard Louv.

I've started reading Last Child and I'm already in love with it. It speaks very specifically about the feeling I'm working with in my project, this detachment yet intrinsic yearning for nature in our lives. It mainly talks about how children interact with nature in the modern day and how it has changed from our parents generation. Louv is trying to encourage and help recognize the significants of children playing and learning in nature.

Some Quotes just from the first 20 pages:
"[Nature] serves as a blank slate upon which children draw and reinterpret the culture's fantasies."
"In nature, a child finds freedom, fantasy, and privacy."
"Nature is reflected in our capacity for wonder."
"[modern-day] kids haven't lost anything, because they never had it."
"they [speak] of nature with a strange mixture of puzzlement, detachment, and yearning."

Good stuff, you guys should check it out.





Friday, December 2, 2011

Crayon Sketches from John St

So I haven't drawn with crayons in awhile... in fact I haven't drawn much at all in the last year, and for FUN in a loooong time–not in the same way that I used to. SO the other night while relaxing and listening to friends talk I drew drew DREW like a crazy man! The drawings don't all make sense and were very much inspired by phrases I heard my friends saying through-out the conversation.

It was SO FREEING!

I'm going to do it more. For the practice. Practice for my creativity and my technique but mainly to help me break down the pressure I've built up around WHAT I should draw rather than enjoying drawing for the sake of experiment and creativity. I'm trying to make my friends feel ok with letting me put some of their drawings up too buut that may take some encouraging. I'll put more up when I can, hopefully this will get me to have these drawing sessions more often.