Title: Protect
Medium: Found Object Size:61x31cm Date: April 2016 Exhibition Text: Andy Goldsworthy's interaction with nature is a major inspiration of this sculpture. The rocks resemble strength and fragility in the shape of a flower. Flat rocks were found by the lakeside. There is contrast with the rest of the scattered rocks as it resembles a flower inhabiting a place where it is not meant to grow. In a foreign land, the flower must be taken care of so that it's beauty can be seen by all. Similar to the flower, our world must also be taken care of.
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Planning: This project was originally to be completed overseas in India since I took a trip there to visit my family. However, there was not enough time and the environment there was not mixed media friendly as there was a lot of garbage in and surrounding my village. I, however, did take the idea of nature and a home into consideration and I knew I wanted to do something that sends that message. As a person who immigrated here when I was six years old, I know that I have two homes. Those homes are here, in Milwaukee, but in India as well, where most of my family lives. I saw the struggles and mud houses in my village and decided to incorporate them into this mixed media piece. I had all these ideas but no idea on what to do exactly. I went to Lake Michigan one day, and decided to brainstorm with my friend. I had the idea of exploring the binary between beauty and ugliness. Now these are broad terms and they mean something different to each and every person. As I looked around the sand and pebbles, I saw pollution. There were a few plastic bottles and just trash laying around in the sand. I saw pieces of driftwood that if without, would make this a wonderful, clean place for everyone to enjoy. Right then (thanks to my friend Daniel), I had the idea to build an egg, something I knew Andy Goldsworthy had also done. I began to make the depression so the bottom of the egg would have support from the sand and would differ from Goldsworthy's Cairn. It had started to storm right there and I had stop working. I went home and sketched out everything that I was planning to do with this project.
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Technique: For the project, technique was not a great challenge. I had to find flat rocks for the foundation of the egg to be strong and serve as a cornerstone for the rest of the piece. Walking around the beach, I found flat rocks and carried them back to my workstation. I placed one flat rock in the center and went in a spiral outwards since an egg starts off thin on the ends and widens towards the middle. The sand helped in forming this shape as intended. I had to work in small flat rocks and so this took quite a long time. Frequent trips picking up rocks hurt my back because I utilized incorrect body mechanics (my back ached for a week). Towards the middle of the project I began to think strategically as my experience accumulated. I found bigger flatter rocks that I would then place on the outskirts of the egg and the smaller flat rocks filled up the middle. I placed the rocks carefully and leveled out any difference in height of neighboring rocks by using the support of smaller rocks underneath the bigger ones. The egg was attempted to be as flat as possible to attain the height desired. When it was completed, miniature pebbles from near the water served to add texture to the piece as I scattered them along the piece and the surrounding sand. Later on, after realizing this is no longer an egg, I decided to put lines of rocks from biggest to smallest to represent the leafy, open structure of a flower. When photographing, I made sure to include the serene quality of the water and pictures of the Milwaukee skyline were at an impossible angle so those could not be captured. Auto-focus was used on the iPhone 5 back-camera for detail shots and focusing on my cairn.
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The World We Live In: The world we live in has problems. Whether the population is aware of them or not, they do exist and it's time we started taking action. Global warming is very much real and the earth is warming up, with major glaciers melting, raising the sea level. In India, the groundwater is lowering, prohibiting the use of sugarcane for manufacturing sugar. Pollution created by us humans is increasing. Meanwhile, we sit blindfolded with connections to social media. The world is connected more than ever but us humans do not make use of it for betterment of our earth. A Paris meeting, COP21, was held to discuss solutions to these issues. I am glad the world is taking these issues seriously but it is time I facilitate the process as well by making those unaware, aware. Through this piece I wanted to convey that in order for the beauty of this planet to be conserved; in order for us to live in harmony with this planet and avoid problems for our future generations we need to step up now. I am merely one out of the 7 billion humans that populate this planet. I can't make a big change but if I start small, maybe these ripples will turn into waves.
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Critique: This project was completed successfully. I succeeded in conveying my message and the photography turned out to be nice. I was disappointed at first that the sculpture did not turn out to be an egg because my message with the egg would have been stronger but a flower serves the purpose as well. I should try to perfect my technique next time so structures that require symmetry such as an egg could be completed. The flower has unity with its form and eyes are free to travel around the piece and take in the background as the lines created by the rocks are jagged and sort of organic. The symmetry of the photograph taken from above does give a sense of balance as one side looks identical to the other. Some photos could be vastly improved. Techniques on photographing should be taken into account. Incorrectly, using the "rule of thirds", I kept my sculpture in the middle of my photos when I should've picked a spot for the eye of the viewer to enter and exit the photograph. This could have been done by placing the subject in the intersection of the lower right corner. The sculpture could have ended in the intersection of the upper left corner. Overall, I believe this was a new, extremely hands-on project that expanded my horizons and made me explore an unfamiliar medium of art, found object.
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Word Count: 1226