Many structures downtown

What I Did:

.5 hours figuring out a reason behind parking meters
2 hours walking downtown and taking pictures of structures
2 hours drawing faces on the pictures and creating characters
1.5 hours trying different materials on metal
.5 hours thinking up ways to display work for the show
2 hours looking at related art at Wooster Collective and filthyluker.com
3 hours revising my thesis paper

Pink-Eye Lady

Nasty Sewer Man

Blind Scary Alley Guy

Crazed Robot Man

Drained Woman

Experimenting with super glue, velcro, paint, pastels, colored pencils, and Sharpie markers.

What I Accomplished/ Discovered/ Encountered:

After talking with my professors, I realized that I need to not only focus on parking meters, but other structures in the area as well. This also became apparent to me because I could not find a big connection between me and parking meters, and if that is the only I would be working with, it would seem like a confusing match. I still love the way they look with the faces that I drew on them, so I will definitely use them in my overall project, but they will not be my only thing to work with.

One thing that I found interesting when looking up information on the parking meters is that there will be an increase in rates that takes effect on the 21st of January. So I would love to transform some of the meters into angry or surprised faces on this day, but it doesn't give me much time.

For many of the structures that I took pictures of, I could see a personality in them. For instance, the metal box/vent thing in the alley was really scary, especially since it was in an alley and how the screens could be interpreted as messed up eyes. The sewer drain was creepy and nasty (because it's a sewer) but I also liked the way it could look like it has missing teeth or large gaps between the teeth. After drawing faces that correspond to the structure and the location of the structure, I feel a lot better about where my project is headed. I think the public will be able to understand the work better and will be able to relate to the personalities of the objects better.

A few ideas that I have to display my work in the final show are to display photographs of the structures and then to also display one of the structures with a face on it in the gallery. It would be cool to find out how to get a parking meter that I could display there. I also want to create a map of where the structures that I have manipulated are and possibly have a path that people can take to lead them through my community of humanized structures.

While looking up street art, I found Filthy Luker who has done a lot of similar work to mine. He or she has put faces, mostly eyes on many structures in a city setting (I am not sure where). The way his differs from mine is that his eyes are very simple cartoon style eyes that are spray painted on. I like how other parts of the object become other parts of the face, and the eyes depend on the surrounding features. I also like the 3D eyeballs that he puts in some things like bushes.

Filthy Luker, untitled

Filthy Luker, untitled

Filthy Luker, "Lightning Nose"

Filthy Luker, "Bad Hair Day"

After talking with Megan about my paper on Tuesday, I realized that like many other people's papers, mine lacked specifics, particularly on the social relevance. Since that is a huge part of my project, I figured I had better fix this in my paper. I did not explain well enough why the faces are where they are, and why it is important for them to be unexpected. When I wrote the rough draft, however, I was not at the point I am at now. So I tried to update my paper a bit in order to have it more current and to keep my intentions and goals down on paper. I think correlating the type of expression of the face with the object makes it much more apparent why the faces are where they are. Also, having the faces on many different types of structures will have them be more surprising than if they were just on parking meters or buildings. And the reason behind having them be surprising is partially having a shock value, but mostly, the more they are integrated into the structure the more surprising it will be. Also, if they are expected, then people will get bored of them, but having them surprising will get people more engaged. And the integration and site specificity are key factors in my project.


What I Think I Should Do Next:

I ordered clear stickers that I can draw on, so I want to practice drawing on these and seeing how seamless they will look on different structures. Also, my mom is bringing my jeweler saw from home this weekend, so I want to start cutting metal pieces in the shape of teeth. Then I want to use paint/Sharpie on these (which I found is the best method) to color them like teeth. I would like to create one or two faces for the parking meters by Sunday, but I am not sure if I will get my supplies in time to do so.