Being sick sucks

These past two weeks have kind of sucked from being sick. I have not progressed with my project as much as I wanted, because I have spent most of my time sleeping.

What I Did: 

3 hours coming up with a plan for the connection of my faces
4 hours making the map of my history of central campus
2 hours taking pictures of the places I selected on the map
2 hours coming up with different ways to intervene in the select spots I chose

What I Accomplished/Encountered/Discovered: 

I like this idea for the connection and I like how personal it will be. I am sure it will be more fun for me to create my faces when I know the exact emotions that I was feeling at the time and when it was an important time in my college career. When I talked to my professors and GSIs, they had good insight into how to improve the map I created. If I reduced the amount of spots to the only really emotional experiences that I have had, then I can focus more on each one and the emotions expressed will be more authentic and less general. So there are 7 spots on my map, in which I will intervene and really try to express my raw emotion for what happened to me in that location.

I took pictures of the sites and have thought a little bit about how I want to go about creating my emotions. I think this is a huge part in my project, however, that will either make or break my project depending on how much thought is put into each location. Even though I really do not want to get away from the illustrated faces that I have been making, I have come up with some different ways to intervene in the space, but nothing has really hit me and made me think that is the way I should go. I am thinking that over spring break I can have a lot of time to think more about this, and then these ideas will help me with my thesis paper.

Like I said, these past 2 weeks have been pretty crappy being sick, but hopefully I will get over this sickness soon and really get to work on my project. I really like where my project is heading at this point and I think I can finally see the finish line and what my project will manifest into.

What I Think I Should Do Next:

Over break, I will come up with more and different interventions that I could possibly use in my locations and finally come up with a solution to them. I will also write the second draft of my thesis paper, which is due when we get back.

Starting graffiti

This weekend, I actually went out and put up some of my art on public structures. 3 were parking meters and one was a storm drain. I used my plastic and paper mouths and also used some Sharpie and I painted on the sewer drain. I spent most of my time this week, however, on preparing for the portfolio expo, so I did not get to spend too much time on my project. I was excited to actually get my artwork up outside though.

What I Did:
4 hours putting up artwork and photographing at night and the next morning
1 hour researching things about Ann Arbor
2 hours researching paper and wheat paste artists and tips

plastic with super glue

paper with wheat paste

paint

defining the whole mouth with paint

paper with wheat paste

with eyes drawn on with Sharpie

What I Noticed:
I came back the next morning to first see if my art was still attached and I wanted to photograph my art in daylight instead of using the flash at night. All were still attached. I noticed that the parking meter that had been in the sunlight (the one with the paper open mouth) was stuck on the most because the wheat paste had totally dried to form a nice bond. The other 2 parking meters still had not dried though because they were not in the sunlight and had only been sitting in the cold all night. I tried to peel off the plastic and the paper and it was fairly easy. The paint on the sewer drain was mostly dry except for a few little spots.

I think the one that looked the best was the kissy face on the yellow parking meter, but I agree with my classmates and professors when they said that when I added the eyes with Sharpie, it was a little too overwhelming and did not need to be added. I mostly just wanted to see how Sharpie would look directly on the parking meter without having to create a whole face with it though. I think the detail that I get with the colored pencils is great and the wheat paste seems to stay on better than the super glue. Plus, when applying the wheat paste, you can brush it underneath and on top of it all over so that there is no pieces hanging off freely, unlike the superglue, which you can only cover so much of the bottom of the plastic. I think with the weather getting warmer, the paper and wheat paste graffiti will only give me better results.

Sadly, I went back to the kissy face on Wednesday and it had been removed. Even the Sharpie marker had been cleaned off, which means that it was not someone just being a jerk and taking off the paper, but it was someone who really wanted the markings off. Even though my facial features did not interfere with anything on the parking meter, somebody did not like it. I have yet to see if the others are still intact. I would be very surprised to see them remove the paint from the storm drain.

I am still trying to figure out how to connect all of my pieces. I tried looking up facts about Ann Arbor that could give me a clue as to how the spots for my pieces could connect, such as similar events that took place in the spots that I put my faces, or demographics in certain areas, but I could not find anything that I could use in my project.

Some graffiti that I have been more closely looking at is paper and wheat paste graffiti. I found that wall paper paste stays on more permanently than wheat paste. I also found that thin paper like newsprint or old blueprints work better, which is something that I figured would be true.

Pavel Puhov's "Eyeglasses"

unknown

 

 

I love both of these pieces for different reasons. Sadly, there was no information about Pavel Puhov's piece, so I do not know how it was created, especially in the snow. But I love the way the lamp post is being used. It takes a person with a lot of imagination to come up with making a lamp post into the temple of a pair of glasses, but now that he did it, it's perfectly clear, and the size of the piece is hilarious. I also really like the shark phone booth, because people have to put their head into the mouth of the shark in order to use the phone. Both of these ideas are so clever, not only in transforming these objects into different objects through graffiti, but the impact that they have is awesome, and the thought process behind them is genius.

When people walk by my pieces of art on the street, that is what I want them to think. Not only do I want them to think it is funny, but I want them to say, "wow, that is genius", or something of the sort.


What I Plan to Do Next:
I really want to come up with a creative way to tie all of my pieces together. I have been racking my brain for a while about this, but have not come up with any plan that I truly want to run with. I also want to revisit my storm drain mouth and add more detail now that the paint has probably fully dried (and is hopefully still there). Since I found out that somebody took off my face on the parking meter, it actually only makes me want to put more up to sort of retaliate. So maybe I will add more paper and wheat paste (or wallpaper paste) to other kinds of structures.

painting directly on the objects or not?

This week I have been really sick, so I did not get to accomplish as much as I would have hoped, but I did figure out a few important things.


What I Did:
1 hour getting more supplies
2.5 hours researching graffiti artists
5 hours creating plastic and paper faces to put on parking meters

What I Accomplished/Encountered/Discovered:
When I bought my paint pens, the man at the hardware store told me that painting on metal outside was going to be hard because it will take forever for it to dry, and he was right. I tried to paint on metal indoors and that even took forever. When trying to paint white on top of red, it basically ruined the white pen by making the tip forever pink. It turns out, if I want to paint on top of a different color, I will basically have to wait about a day for the underneath paint to dry. I also thought about using Sharpie markers on top of paint, but it is the same situation.

Therefore, I decided to think up a few different ways to apply faces to the structures. I traced the dimensions of the details of a parking meter, and I made mouths out of Sharpie on plastic and colored pencils on paper. I am going to attach the paper with wheat paste and the plastic with super glue onto different parking meters and I am also going to paint directly on a parking meter and possibly use Sharpie directly on one in order to find the best solution to the problem. With the paper and plastic mouths, I created both the open mouth and the lips because the surface to put the open mouth is a flat surface and the one where I would put the lips is rounded and also has indents. This will allow me to see if the plastic and/or paper fails on bumpy surfaces compared to flat ones.

With the paper, I can get the most detail, with the plastic, it will look more seamless but with a little less detail, and by painting directly on the object, I will get the least detail of all but it will look more integrated into the object and less like I just stuck it on.

There are some graffiti pieces by unknown artists that I have been looking at that involve paper and wheat paste. These pieces are found on the ground and contain an unusual content that is very surprising. The first piece with the fake money on the ground catches people off guard because one of the best surprises is to find money on the ground, but you don't usually find it. You have to get close to this piece to realize it is not real. The second piece is more surprising like my ideas where the person took an everyday object on the street and added some imagination to it.

This is another piece of street art that I found and really liked.  The artist, Anna Garforth, took an everyday object, created a face out of it, and placed it on the street. She made it into a plant holder, however, so it makes sense to put it outside. I don't know if it relates to my idea that much, but I really like how she is reusing an object, bringing more plant life outside to an area that looks like it does not have much to begin with, and she is doing it in a creative way to bring imagination and child-like pleasures to the public.

What I Plan to Do Next:

This weekend, I am going to attach my plastic and paper mouth onto parking meters, and I want to paint directly on parking meters as well to see which one works the best. I want to know exactly what my plan is for attaching these creatures to the structures for the rest of the semester.