Project 9 - Final Project
For our final project, the only criteria were that we needed to make a collection and a means of display. While I was home over Thanksgiving break, I looked around my house for things that might make a collection. I happened upon the pages my mom had saved from a Page-A-Day calendar. They each had a nature/landscape photograph and a bible verse, along with the date. I liked the photographs on them and the various colors and textures, so I chose to use them to create my collection.
I brainstormed for a while, and decided to make a bunch of paper airplanes from the pages of the calendar. The concept I settled on was a representation of humanity's movement through time. I wanted to have a painted poster with scripture relating to the past and future, which would be suspended with the paper airplanes going through it.
I began by painting the poster white on one side and a medium gray on the other.
I had quite a bit of difficulty in putting the text on the poster. I sketched out my ideas and planned the spacing of the words, then transferred them to the poster using graphite. Unfortunately, the graphite didn't erase well from the poster, so I ended up sanding off most of the poster surface until I could just barely see the words. In addition, it didn't work to write the words on using a Sharpie or ink pen, so I used tempera paint.
After hanging the poster, I went through the pile of calendar pages and organized them. I left out the Saturday/Sunday pages as the images were oriented differently on them. I chose five from each month that I had (February through November). While I only ended up using twenty-five airplanes, I did make a total of fifty.
My goal with this piece was to explore time and place on the small scale (humans) and the large scale (the entire past, present, and future). The gray side represents the past, and it has no scripture passage to symbolize the multiplicity of individual experiences that each human has unique to them. The white side represents the future which we are all headed towards. In between is the present: thin, fleeting, and yet all-encompassing; we are all stuck in it. The title of chapter 32 in Isaiah is "The Glorious Future," which is also the title of my piece. In my understanding, the verses I selected in particular provide a vision of the kingdom of God - full of peace and righteousness and renewal. It is a beautiful vision to anticipate, and also to actively participate in even now.
I brainstormed for a while, and decided to make a bunch of paper airplanes from the pages of the calendar. The concept I settled on was a representation of humanity's movement through time. I wanted to have a painted poster with scripture relating to the past and future, which would be suspended with the paper airplanes going through it.
My original idea sketch
I began by painting the poster white on one side and a medium gray on the other.
I put a lot of thought into the specific words chosen for the poster. I definitely wanted something that pointed to the future, and I thought something from scripture would be consistent with the verses on each calendar page. I ended up choosing Isaiah 32:3-4, 16-17. I conferred with a friend who was currently taking a class on the book of Isaiah, and she said that while it did exist in part as Messianic prophecy, it also applied to our future still to come.
I had quite a bit of difficulty in putting the text on the poster. I sketched out my ideas and planned the spacing of the words, then transferred them to the poster using graphite. Unfortunately, the graphite didn't erase well from the poster, so I ended up sanding off most of the poster surface until I could just barely see the words. In addition, it didn't work to write the words on using a Sharpie or ink pen, so I used tempera paint.
Once I finished painting the words, the next step was to hang the poster. I'd already chosen ArtLab 2 in Adams as the location where my piece would be displayed.
I then began to cut the airplanes and attach them to each side of the poster. Each group of five airplanes were cut at the same place, so there was consistent variation overall.
The progression of the airplanes
The finished project:
My goal with this piece was to explore time and place on the small scale (humans) and the large scale (the entire past, present, and future). The gray side represents the past, and it has no scripture passage to symbolize the multiplicity of individual experiences that each human has unique to them. The white side represents the future which we are all headed towards. In between is the present: thin, fleeting, and yet all-encompassing; we are all stuck in it. The title of chapter 32 in Isaiah is "The Glorious Future," which is also the title of my piece. In my understanding, the verses I selected in particular provide a vision of the kingdom of God - full of peace and righteousness and renewal. It is a beautiful vision to anticipate, and also to actively participate in even now.
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