Final Metaphor, Crit

Official display

Frontal view of the mask

In the Mirror

When I went to the store to buy the materials I needed for my metaphor project "Lost in Translation," I saw this Styrofoam head, masks, and feathers and I really wanted to do something with them so I scrapped my original idea and decided on this new one on a whim. Probably not the smartest thing to do. Everyone thought it was too simple and I agree. I wish I hadn't gotten caught up in the moment like I do sometimes, but the way I had envisioned it, it seemed like such a great idea! I don't think the final piece even came off the way I intended. More than just "wearing a mask" in public, this was specifically supposed to be this girl trying desperately to be so "glamorous" or better than who she thinks she is but when she looks in the mirror she sees that you can't just cover up who you really are. I specifically chose the Phantom mask versus the masks that just cover up your eyes because the Phantom mask actually splits your face in two, which was perfect for what I was going for. Half of her face was going to be really beautiful, elegant, rich, and glamorous while the other half was going to be just plain white (who she really is, just plain white Styrofoam...ordinary, like everybody else). I failed, though, in making the mask strikingly beautiful, I should have used sequins and even more extravagant feathers-and still not have made it look like Mardi Gras!!!! But like I said, more that just wearing a mask and "hiding who you really are", this was supposed to be "trying to be someone greater than who you think you are, which is just ordinary." But if that didn't come off, then that's my fault.

Final 111/33 with Crit

111

More than anything, the greatest flaw of this piece was the craftsmanship. The edges aren't even straight, and this was before I knew that there's this thing that everyone else has been using to cut boards perfectly straight...so yeah that's what i'm going to be using from now on. And the design, well comparing it to others we saw that day, I'm going to say that it's a little simple. I could have been more ambitious, but [if you don't want to hear excuses, stop reading] sometimes I have problems with instructions. I'll hear what you're saying but I still will not be sure of what you want me to do. Also, maybe this could have been better if the lines had been bolder and brighter, but that was the best I could do with gel pens (which I used because they were shiny).

33

Now this piece I tried to make look like calligraphy, especially the cut of the board, it looks like a scroll. I'm not quite sure what else to say about this piece. I've never painted before and I thought it would be fun to try it for this project, but maybe that wasn't such a good idea. My "painting skills" were most likely taken into consideration when grading this piece, but let me just say that every brush stroke was intentional. If something looks sloppy, it wasn't laziness. I wanted it to look that way-that is to say, it didn't look sloppy to me, but it came out just the way I wanted. To improve this I would probably make it really big, like 5' x 5' and make finer brush strokes and then gloss it, laminate it, I don't know, finish it off somehow with a thin transparent layer on top.

Metaphor Concept Sketches

One of my ideas was to do a sort of "Heaven & Earth" piece based on me being (or having become) a Christian. This was inspired by a photo we at lecture once of life and death/destruction where there were white feathers hanging horizontally from the ceiling and then, I think, tangles and tangles of branches on the floor right beneath them. It was a really great contrast and I kind of wanted to do that with white and black feathers to represent me having chosen heaven instead of this earth (because the bible talks a lot about choosing the world or the Kingdom of God). Well I thought the feather idea was cutting it a little too close to that other artist's idea so I thought then to use jewels to represent heaven and earth. I planned on scattering blue and green jewels (to represent the earth) on the ground and then have a poster board hanging over them with constellations painted on it and having a really large and shiny diamond (heaven) right at the center. I wasn't sure though how I was going to express the act of choosing between them, maybe handprints?

By the way, that mustache looking thing on the top left is supposed to be lots of white feathers at the top and black (or green and blue) feathers at the bottom, my original idea.

Heaven vs. Earth

Another idea I had was to illustrate how I felt when I was in preschool and I didn't know english. I was going to put a figurine of a litte girl trapped inside a birdcage watching monkeys (figurines) outside of the birdcage laugh and play. The monkeys are supposed to be the other students, and they are going to represent monkeys because they might as well have been, I didn't understand anything they were saying.

Lost in Translation

The third idea I had was based on how Christians are supposed to be the "light of the world," so I was going to put a candle inside a hollowed box and each side of the box was going to have a picture of very worldly/influential/addictive things on it like a TV, cell phone, computer, and a magazine (probably Vogue). Maybe they should be painted blue and green....

Light of the World

Exquisite Corpse

Ugly, bananas, hit, blue, gun
"Ugly bananas were hit by a blue gun"

Quickly, tree, run, crunchy, silly bandz
"The tree ran quickly on crunchy silly bandz"

Strongest, fish, inspire, fleeting, hint
"The strongest fish inspire fleeting hints"