Shaya's creations

 Makenna and I were assigned the design studio for this project. Since this room is often one that students from other classes pass by on the way to the bathroom, people will often look through the windows to see who is in the class and what is happening inside the room. We wanted our art to be looking back at those nosey people, and to call them out in a playful way.  While at first we had an idea to only have 3 big sets of eyes, we then thought it would be more effective to have many eyes in a line, with their pupils following the people walking by. It became a fun interactive art piece that people were interested in even as we were setting it up. What are you looking at?

When I was told our drawing project had to include some sort of unconventional mark making, I immediately thought of using mirrors as a medium. I was drawn to the creative possibilities of using reflections to add in another dimension to the piece, and to invite the viewer to participate in the art. When thinking about how I wanted to use mirrors in my art, I thought of the work of Karen Nachtigall. For her graduate thesis show, she constructed large, mirror-covered, floating sculptures. Her work explores the themes of illness and how we deal with it. Covering her forms in these mirrors added a captivating beauty to her pieces, that effectively drew the viewers into her art. I hoped to make similar pieces that would encourage interaction and curiosity about the works themselves. Another artist I drew inspiration from was Simon Berger. Using a hammer, he creates detailed portraits and images on glass; a medium typically associated with fragility and destruction. I was drawn to Berger...

For our first 4D project, I was tasked with reuniting my friend Airy with her stuffed animal manatee. As a kid, Airy played with both a manatee mother and a baby manatee, but since then has lost the mom. She mentioned how her younger brother still plays with the baby manatee, and how special it would be to have a recreated version of the stuffed animal she grew up with.  I first decided to sketch out a simple manatee on a piece of cloth, and used black and white acrylic paint to color it. Airy had mentioned loving how her animal was big enough to hug, so I did my best to keep the manatee's size true to her descriptions. I then cut around the shape of the manatee, and traced the shape on another piece of cloth in order to have two sides. Using needle and thread, I did my best to sew the two pieces together. This part of the process proved to be the hardest, as I had never sewn before. Looking back, I probably should have used a hot glue gun for a better finish. Although I wasn't...