For the Beauty of the Earth
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Inspiration
For “For The Beauty of the Earth”, I was largely inspired by Homage to New York by Jean Tinguely. The piece was a self destroying sculpture, made of various found parts and pieces, from bottles to questionable generators. When it was started, it flew apart, set on fire, and random notes could be heard playing from the burning piano. The whole point of the piece was essentially to create a show for the onlookers, with only video, photos, leftover bit, and the viewers’ memories left behind. It connects to my own, by also being destroyed. His piece destroys itself, whereas mine only does by extension. It is made of things from the earth, which was in turn destroyed by myself, another thing from the earth.
Tinguely's work in general is about overproduction of material goods. |
Another inspiration for this project was Andy Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy uses natural materials to make much of his work, in the same way I used flowers and wood. He painstakingly selects the right items to make ephemeral patterns that natural processes such as rotting, wind, and weather eventually destroy. My main draw from his work is the use of flowers and other natural materials he uses to create his work, and his beautiful photographs taken before it is gone. His work as a whole is about the beauty of nature and it's impermanence.
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Planning
My one and only planning sketch page. When I had the idea, I knew it was the perfect one. At first, my plan was to arrange flower heads and attach them to something, and then set it ablaze. However, the use of the full flower was much less expensive, and had a beautiful result, reminiscent of flowers lain on graves.
The planning sketch presents my three stages of my piece. The first, with all of the beautiful flowers lain out in their colorful vibrancy. The middle, with an abstract representation of the flames. The last, the charred remains of the piece. Not depicted, is the burnt flowers, something I somehow never thought about until the project was complete. |
Process
The first step was to put together the letters with our scrap wood. It's reused from an old door frame in my house. We didn't attach them to each other in anyway, they were just laid together on the ground.
Next was to add the flowers on top of the wood. We got a variety of cut flowers, three bouquets total, but I only ended up using about 2 full bouquets.
Now we're at around the point where the first stage of the piece was complete. There was a few tweaks here and there before actually moving on, but this was it, without all the fancy camera angles.
As the sun started to set, we moved on to adding the lighter fluid to the piece.
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Experimentation
The experimentation in the project was not done completely intentionally. What this basically came down to was, that when we first lit the piece on fire, there was:
- too much sun still up to get a good effect on the fire
- not enough lighter fluid to keep the piece aflame
The first lighting of the letters didn't go very well. Nothing much caught fire, just the edges and maybe a bit of the smaller flowers. Nothing stayed lit either, so getting more lighter fluid was pretty much the only option. The second time around, the darker area and the brighter flame overall was much better, and the last part wouldn't have been as charred as I would've wanted. Overall, I'm much happier with the whole of the project this way.
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Reflection
I've very very happy about how this whole project came out. It's nothing like I've ever done before, yet it felt so natural. Putting the whole thing together was a fun experience, and I love having different ways to present the same work. It has multiple facets, and that's something I'm not the best at. Overall, it was beautiful from start to finish and one of my favorite projects to do so far. It was satisfying to put it together and see the flowers arranged in a more unusual way from how I typically see them. It was fun to have an unusual fire, in the shape of something I love. Seeing the end result was also beautiful in it's own way, but yet heartbreaking because the beginning was gone, and a new thing had taken it's place. If I were to do this project again, I would've set my camera to a burst shot mode to get way more images than I did, and/or consider purchasing a drone to take better shots of the whole thing. I unfortunately had no good place to look down on the project from, which is why all the images in my final product image are shot from near the ground and skewed. It was my attempt at getting the entire piece in one image that wasn't the ugly angle I had for my process photos, and trying to keep legibility.
My piece is self destroying, and generally impermanent in a similar way to my inspirations. The destruction of my piece was on purpose, similar to Homage to New York, but in a more natural way similar to the work of Andy Goldsworthy. My piece's theme is nature, like Goldsworthy, but his isn't as much about the destruction and rotting away of the work. He doesn't have much for images of his work's end, unlike myself and Tinguely. Overall, my inspirations may not be terribly obvious, but they're concrete.
My piece is self destroying, and generally impermanent in a similar way to my inspirations. The destruction of my piece was on purpose, similar to Homage to New York, but in a more natural way similar to the work of Andy Goldsworthy. My piece's theme is nature, like Goldsworthy, but his isn't as much about the destruction and rotting away of the work. He doesn't have much for images of his work's end, unlike myself and Tinguely. Overall, my inspirations may not be terribly obvious, but they're concrete.
ACT Responses
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect on upon your artwork.
Both of my inspirations have themes based in impermanence and change, whether the change to the piece is on purpose or not. My artwork has a purposeful change in form, in a natural way.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors of Goldworthy's websites all talk about how beautiful his work is, and the beauty of knowing how impermanent it truly is. The authors of Tinguely's pages all agreed that he was a genious for creating his self destructing machine, and that the concept of it is something unique.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc while you researched your inspiration?
That to many, the impermanence of a piece makes it all the more beautiful and incredible. I have to say I agree.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The main idea around my research was the way things started one way, and ended in another, so essentially impermanence.
5. What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
I think that Tinguely was very critical of wasteful culture, and made his machine to make a statement about it. I found that Goldsworthy has a true appreciation for the natural world and likely finds it worth protecting.
Both of my inspirations have themes based in impermanence and change, whether the change to the piece is on purpose or not. My artwork has a purposeful change in form, in a natural way.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The authors of Goldworthy's websites all talk about how beautiful his work is, and the beauty of knowing how impermanent it truly is. The authors of Tinguely's pages all agreed that he was a genious for creating his self destructing machine, and that the concept of it is something unique.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc while you researched your inspiration?
That to many, the impermanence of a piece makes it all the more beautiful and incredible. I have to say I agree.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The main idea around my research was the way things started one way, and ended in another, so essentially impermanence.
5. What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
I think that Tinguely was very critical of wasteful culture, and made his machine to make a statement about it. I found that Goldsworthy has a true appreciation for the natural world and likely finds it worth protecting.
Video of Homage to New York
Works Cited
Wolff, Rachel. “Swiss Institute’s ‘destruction’ Pays Homage to Jean Tinguely.” Art & Design. The New York Times, 7 Sept. 2014. Web.
Landy, Michael. Homage to destruction. 1 Sept. 2009. Web.
York, Homage to New. Homage to New York, 1960 - Jean Tinguely. www.wikiart.org, n.d.
Goldsworthy, Andy. Sculptor turns rain, ice and trees into “ephemeral works.” NPR.org, 8 Oct. 2015. Web.
“Andy Goldsworthy.” visualmelt.com. n.d. Web.
Landy, Michael. Homage to destruction. 1 Sept. 2009. Web.
York, Homage to New. Homage to New York, 1960 - Jean Tinguely. www.wikiart.org, n.d.
Goldsworthy, Andy. Sculptor turns rain, ice and trees into “ephemeral works.” NPR.org, 8 Oct. 2015. Web.
“Andy Goldsworthy.” visualmelt.com. n.d. Web.