Thursday, January 29, 2009

Fairy Tale Artifacts...

First project of the new semester, I was assigned a fairy tale written by the infamous Grimm brothers. Based on this story and notes made in our opus/sketchbook I had to make an artifact that embodied our story without putting it in a completely literal sense.


With courage of the youth, wisdom of the snakes, and loyalty of the servant, the youth himself was able to survive the perils thrown his way in the story.



When considering the story, I focused more on archetypal story means, and even more on archetypal colors to help me create my artifact. Since courage was something I took as most important in the story for the main character, I automatically thought of a knight in armor. With this thought I decided to create a knight's gauntlet, but instead of making it armor-like I made it more as a glove/fabric piece and in the final model used red (symbolist of courage and sacrifice) and blue (symbolist of wisdom and loyalty) as contrasting colors in my piece.



Items: Fabric from give-away box, blue soft ribbon, blue/red/white thread...
Ribbons are adjustable to fit just about anyone's arm, including my own. :)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Artifacts of Mine...

Artifacts were one of the major words of our first week back to the semester, our first assignment was to find 5 artifacts that mean alot to us and or define us in one way or another and draw them with an ink pen alone and choose one colored pencil color. My color was green of course!

Most of my artifacts have a story about them and not all of them are things, one is an animal. Meddle!~ :3

5 artifacts: Game Boy Color, Sapphire Heart necklace, Legacy sunglasses, Class ring, and Meddle the cornish rex.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Express: Design::Tell: Story


::Annotations::

Stories: Stories are events that can be fictional or true, they can be the story of a person's life a tale of fantasy told down for centuries and centuries. Stories can be used for entertainment purposes with tales of magic and dragons or can tell life lessons with morals of courage and wisdom.


Artifacts: Artifacts are relics or items of importance to the past or present, this item can carry a story with it as well and helps as a visual aid to depict the story. The picture of my cat drawn in Design Graphics is an artifact as well because it is something important to me and it defines me to other people. An item such as an artifact can represent someone or something and can be a person, place, or thing. "A bicycle shed is a building, Lincoln cathedral is a piece of architecture." ( Nicholas Peusner's Quote) Between the two 'artifacts' there are two different meanings for their existence that acts as a relic for future generations to look at. While the Bicycle shed is more functional and the cathedral is more symbolic they are both considered artifacts to which people associate meanings and storied with year after they are built.


Multi view: Multi view is a way to understand the information via different views and view points, mostly it is referred to when talking about an item. In the multi view of an item for one to get the full description of it they must look at the top, bottom, front, and sides to understand something fully. Every view is different. In the reading by Roth, "The Vitruvian three-part definition of architecture, incorporating utility, firmness, and beauty begins with the element that, on the surface, would appear most straightforward, but that, since the mid-twentieth century, has proved extremely troublesome." (p. 12 Roth) He describes that the definition, though seemingly straight forward, may have several multiple views in its meaning when interpreted by different people.


Cycle: Is a selection of events that reoccurs over and over again in a pattern like form. When I think of cycle I think never ending, always something happening like the seasons. There is never and interruption and one of the four seasons always happen. Cycles make things a bit more predictable for those who can figure out the pattern in them. " In architecture, as in all operative arts, the end must direct the operation. The end is to build well. Well building hath three conditions: Commodity, Firmness, and Delight." ( Sir Henry Wotton Quote) There is a cycle when creating architecture along with three conditions, the end being the most important part of this design cycle and process because it is what is commonly seen and remarked upon.


Translation: Translation is taking something and interpreting it in one's own words so that understanding can occur, for example, a foreign language spoken to someone who doesn't know that language holds no meaning because one cannot under stand the meaning. If one translates this to something understandable there is a better chance for the message to be passed on. Some translations are harder then others, even abstract ideas can be translated by a person willing to find the meaning. "What was it for [Stonehenge]? The effort of many generations, extended over so many centuries, was undertaken for some compelling purpose." (p.172 Roth) Stonehenge as Roth describes is a prime example of a piece of existing architecture that has many 'translations' by many people, was it a burial ceremony structure or was it used to tell the position of the stars. We may never know but that does not keep people from trying to come up with their own translations of the stone wonder.



::Reflections::

Stories, artifacts, multi view, cycle, and translation can all be inter related. Stories can have many translations just like design in architecture. No two people have the exact same idea about how to translate them because each is different. Artifacts can have a story attached to them that may or may not need to be translated in order to get the moral or entertainment across to others. The constant telling of stories is cycled throughout the generations and in many different translated variations for the same artifact and story though the story may change through each cycle.

"Beauty will result from the form and correspondence of the whole, with the respect to several parts, of the parts with regard to each other..." (Andrea Palladio Quote) This quote in History + Theory of design was interesting to me because it describes how its not just the final product of the design that is important, even though it is important in a cycle to get to the end. It takes all the parts of the architectural piece to make it beautiful.

Timeline Project

:: 1200 AD::

Institutions:
+ Naples University is founded.
+University of Paris receives charter from Philip II of France.
+ Emergence of the Collegiate System in Islam.

Technology:
+ Alcohol was used for Medical purposes.
+ Arabs create Aromatherapy
+ Clothing buttons are invented.
+ Movable type where block printing was concerned was invented and widely used in Korea.
+Caravel Ship was invented in Al-Andalus.

Governance:
+ Development in Feudalism develops in Western Europe.
+ Magna Carta is signed by King John of England.
+ Saint Francis of Assisi, a rich Italian Merchant gives up wealth for the life of a poor man.
+ Qutub- ud- Din Aibak founded Islamic State in Northern India.
+ King John of England marries a 13 year old Isabella of Angouleme at Bordeaux.
+ Mongols are defeated in Northern China.
+ Fourth Crusaders conquer Byzantium and sack Constantinople.
+Crete falls to Venetians.
Commerce:
+ The Islamic world and china dominate much of trade in the 1200s, business was carried out Expansion of this trade is assisted by advances in navigation and the use of Arabic numerals.

::1200 BC::

Institutions:
+Tale of Two Brothers by an Egyptian Papyrus is scribed.

Technology:
+ “Wet Chemistry” and other sophisticated techniques are being used by the Egyptians.
+ Metal swords are being used in Europe primarily for combat as well as ceremonial purposes.
+ Chariots appear in Ancient China.
+ Earliest writing that survives exists in China.
+Simple plow develops in Europe.

Governance:
+ Theseus, legendary King of Athens, is deposed after a reign of 30 years and succeeded by Menestheus.
+ Olmec civilization in Mesoamerica started.
+ Collapse of Hittite power in Anatolia with the destruction of the capital.
+ Aramaic Nomads and Chaldeans become a big threat to the former Babylonian and Assyrian Empire.

Commerce:
+ Massive migrations of people around the Mediterranean and the Middle-East
+Mesopotamian tablets are thought to be the first economic documentation of food and other trade. This developed across the ancient world from Babylon to India and China.

::Sources::
+http://www.answers.com/topic/1200
+http://www.criticalthinking.net.au/Resources/Flash/middleAges_timeline.swf
+http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Aromatherapy---Arabia-800-1200-AD---Africa---Europe-Middle-Ages-500-1300-AD&id=1538958
+http://history-timeline.deepthi.com/india-timeline-history/india-history-to-1400.html
+ http://www.jrmooneyham.com/lostcv4ref.html
+http://www.urbandharma.org/udnl3/nl072704.html
+http://www.wikipedia.org
+http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/road_to_riches/timeline/timeline.swf

A B C... Easy as 1 2 3!

First lettering assignment of the spring semester...
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ 1234567890

Do at least 10 lines of each size required. One line was 1/4" lettering with a 1/8" space and the other was even smaller at 3/16" lettering with a 3/32" space. I basically filled the 18X24 sheet of vellum for this assignment.