1. Think about the first half of this semester. Are there any primary or unifying concepts, themes, or trends that you recognize? In this paragraph, you can pose questions or include definitions of terms to help describe your interests and aims.

 

In the first half of the semester, I would say there are three unifying concepts that I have recognized throughout the sculptural process of creating my chairs. The first unifying concept I have found within my work is the beautification of these broken down chairs into more pleasing/lively subjects is due to the pursuit of happiness and being carefree from the stressful situations of modern life. I want the viewer to feel happy and be able to temporarily forget about their troubles as they visually dive into the chairs. I like to have a lot of intricate piping detail and found objects within the chairs that help tell a story about how this chair is related to the pop idol referenced. This aspect of beautification to escape reality is important due to the troubling and stressful situations of modern life (especially now that there is mass panic due to coronavirus). I want the viewer to relax visually and explore the subject that I have presented to them. 

The second unifying concept I have within my work is choosing to pick four pop idols that are all female. These famous pop stars that I have chosen are Kyrary Pamyu Pamyu, Trixie Mattel, Fran Drescher, Dolly Parton. These are all very beautiful and intelligent women that I have chosen because they have all had a very significant impact on me personally through their music,fashion, and performances on stage. They all have their personalized reasons as to why I love them and how they have influenced me but overall as a collective group they have shown me it is okay to be unapologetically yourself and a strong female wearing pink within society-its confidence! This unifying message is something I was able to gather from all of these women on and off the stage of their performances through the media. And as such, that is why I have also chosen to include myself within the show through representation of a pink chair to creatively express how they have impacted me as an audience member to take action and live out my own dreams unapologetically pink.

 

And lastly, the third unifying concept i have been utilizing while creating each individual chair that that I have been heavily referencing each one of the pop idols outfits,characteristics, and fashion choices to make each chair have a distinct difference. This aspect of using fashion and characteristics to help me create these chairs allows me to channel aspects of them and challenge myself with integrating artistic/personal choices of my own. By being able to make these chairs it has dawned on me that I am making an impression of them with these chairs just as they have made an impression on me by performing.In that sense, I feel that it has almost come full circle by inspiring me to create new work and each chair may have a possibility of being seen by them one day.

 

2. Focus on material, craft, and design. Thinking about your projects, do you recognize any commonalities in the way you make across your artwork this term? For example: Do you primarily lean towards representation, abstraction, or non-objective forms? Do you prefer highly refined craft no matter the medium or does this vary with media? How do you find form or make form? What does process mean to you?

 

Thinking about my chairs so far, I would say I lean primarily toward representation.My goal with each chair is to create a distinct look that channels each one of the pop stars' looks, fashion sense or characteristics while adding my own artistic twist to fully embody the artist. I prefer to have a highly refined craft no matter what the chair underneath may look like. To have a highly refined look, I have practiced many hours learning how to pipe frosting by utilizing silicone caulking through experimenting on paper towels, shaped foam, and phone cases. By practicing any hours on non-edible objects as well as just baking in real life, I have been able to come up with designs and use different piping tips to decorate as a unifying element between all five of the chairs. I find the form I am going to pipe by looking at what pop idol I am referencing. For example, Fran Drescher has very big curly and wavy hair so for the chair I mainly utilized a ruffle wave piping technique to describe her hair to accurately represent her. Representing her hair texture in this instance is very important to me because what she influenced me most was with her hit show “The Nanny”. In that show she was always seen getting ready and making her hair bigger and bigger for the sake of beauty and comedy in these instances and was widely known for having such large hair as an aftereffect. So for my chair to accurately represent her as a comedian and actress I needed to have this element intertwined into my chair.

 

3. Pull concept and material together. Explain how your concepts in paragraph #1 are made visual through media/design in paragraph #2. Through the combination of concept and visual, what are your aims and priorities when designing and creating? Or, analyzing your choices, what do these material and craft choices reveal about your methodologies and conceptual aims? Do you have any goals for audience engagement, experience, or comprehension? Are there any artists who use similar materials or who have parallel goals who you could name to help clarify your artistic aims?

 

Pulling my concept and material together I would say the creation of my chairs is through restoration and beautification of recycled chairs to communicate five idealized representations of pop idols: Dolly Parton, Trixie Mattel, Kyrary Pamyu Pamyu, and Fran Drescher to show off what unique characteristics makes them identifiable within society and proudly state I am here! These unique and quirky representations of the chairs are highly refined and crafted with found objects and silicone frosting, amongst other gems, to spark joy and happiness within the viewer to visually distract from the stressful times of reality.

 Escaping into an immersive experience, I have planned for my audience to experience these throne-like chairs upon white pedestals (about 3ft from the wall) placed to the right of a 20X30” pastel monochrome portrait of the pop idol corresponding to the chairs color. Within a pastel pink painted room, there will be a soft fragrance of sweet fruit (strawberry peach) to capitalize on the sweetness of the frosting like piping I have applied to each chair. In addition, there will be music playing that by all of the artists represented on a personalized playlist that I will have made featuring Trixie Mattel, Kyrary Pamyu Pamyu and  Dolly Parton. The music is an important element within the experience of viewing my show because their music is one of the things that helped me develop a connection to them as an artist and inspired me to further pursue them as an artistic concept for the chairs. In addition, while creating each one of my chairs at home or in the studio, those songs helped me make each chair by encouragement and helped boost my own mood to get into the right headspace to create. And lastly the element of music will actually help viewers who may not know these pop idol influences, give them reference as to who these women are.