Topic Two: Pattern and Ornament, Part 3

The presentation that we were unable to continue in class today can be found here.  This presentation gives you further context for the CAM Raleigh reading, as well as contextual information regarding Modernism, Kitsch and Postmodernism.  Please review it; it will help your overall understanding of the topic.

Information Regarding Critique, Tuesday, September 25:

You now have 4 full working days to create an ambitious artwork that is derived from the processes we modeled to you throughout the duration of this topic. 

Critique will be broken up into two groups, one with Don (groups A & B) and the other with Kathleen (groups C & D).  Meet in our regular room; Don's group will set up for critique in 5208.  Don's group should not set up work in 5219.

Topic Two: Pattern and Ornament

Critique ‘Rubric’

1)      Relevance to Topic Two: Can the viewer understand how individual and/or cultural experience has shaped or influenced the design and execution of the artwork? 

2)      Ambition: Is the work ambitious? Did you invest significant time in the process, and does it show?

3)      Execution: Does the work successfully convey what you intended?  Consider this through: your craftsmanship, your communicative goals, your use of design, your compositional decisions, your technical choices, and your skills.

4)      Professionalism: Is the work presented in a professional manner?  Understand that “professional” doesn’t automatically mean “framed”, “matted”, or “on a pedestal”.  Presentation that is not professional is most obvious because it distracts from the presence and communicative goals of the artwork by an intrusion of unintentional context.

Topic Two: Pattern and Ornament, Part 2 of 2

Research Assignment #2, DUE Sept. 17 at 10 PM (on your blog, as a post):

Using a digital camera, take images of examples of pattern and ornament that you see in your daily life.


Assignment #2 DUE Sept. 18 at 10 AM:

Select a chair pattern from one of the four options provided below.  You will use this pattern to interpret, build on, or 'arrange' (reconfigure), taking your own interests, experience, strengths and skills into account.  Find a way to make something from the pattern that is 'your own', but that is still a chair.  Create (draw/paint/digitally make) three views of this chair: Top view, Side View, Front View.  Each image should be 8" x 10".  You will have a week to create these drawings.

1. Eames

2. Hepplewhite

3. Renaissance Folding 

4. Sheraton

Assignment #3 DUE Sept 18 at 10 AM:

Greyscale Repeat Pattern--you will be given a demonstration in how to create a repeat pattern on Thursday, September  13.  Create a greyscale repeat using the method instructed, on an 8.5" x 11" looseleaf sheet of paper.  You will turn this in to the professors; it cannot exist in your sketchbook.

Research Assignment #3, DUE Sept. 19 at 10 PM:
Reading- here is the online reading and form.  This post will be updated by the 13th with that info.

Assignment #4  DUE Sept 25 at 10 AM [CRIT]:

Quadrant Abstraction--we will assign you a quadrant that you will use to abstract one of your chair views.  From this, you will create an artwork in any medium of your choice that will be ambitious, and which fulfills one of the purposes or goals you have personally established for your body of work.  We will assign you the quadrant on Sept. 18; you will have a week to create this artwork.

Topic Two: Pattern and Ornament, Part 1 of 2

Topic Overview

This next topic will be a consideration of both design and fabrication through the focusing concepts of pattern and ornament in art, craft and architecture.  Some questions that we will consider are: In what ways are design and execution related as a cohesive process?  How are design ideas and concepts transmitted?  What are the steps necessary to take a design from idea to actuality?  What is the relationship between design and decoration?  What ideas does decoration transmit?

This topic will consider a historical and global viewpoint.  The reading will be challenging for most of you, as will be many of the concepts which underpin this topic.  Our goal is to dig deep, rather than to remain at a level of popular understanding.  We will be examining both design and making as integral, essential thought processes.

Required Outside Visit--Deadline Sept. 17

There will be a required Outside Visit for this topic; this is part of your research grade for the course.  You will be required to go to the Wolfsonian-FIU Museum on Miami Beach.  You must use the following exhibition for your visit for this topic, but we encourage you to see them all:

Art and Design in the Modern Age: Selections from the Wolfsonian Permanent Collection

You will be given a form response for this Outside Visit--your form response is DUE Monday, September 17 at 10 PM.  Additionally, you are required to take a selfie while in the exhibit to post on your blog.  You may also post any other information regarding the visit on your blog, if you like. The Google Form is HERE <-- hint: this is a link; you can click on it.

On Friday, September 7, and Friday, September 14, the Wolfsonian will be offering a free, 45-minute long guided tour that begins at 6 PM.  Fridays allow free entry between 6 - 9 PM.

The Wolfsonian is located at:

1001 Washington Avenue, Miami Beach, FL 33139
At the corner of 10th Street & Washington Avenue 

These are the museum's hours:

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday | 10am–6pm
Wednesday | closed
Friday | 10am–9pm (free 6–9pm)
Sunday | noon–6pm

Assignments--Deadlines: Various

You will have brought materials in to class on Thursday, September 6.

In-class Exercises, Thursday, September 6:

• Directed Drawings (three)
• 2D-to-3D translation

These exercises need to be documented on your blog.

Research Assignment #1, READING (DUE September 10, 10 PM):

You will be given a printed copy of the reading, as well as a form questionnaire for your response.  The Google Form is here. We will have a discussion about this reading in class on September 11.  Your form response will be due September 10 at 10 PM.

Ivins, William M. ""Ornament" and the Sources of Design in the Decorative Arts." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 13, no. 2 (1918): 35-41. Available on JSTOR through the MDC Library.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3254155

Assignment One: Kit & Instructions (DUE Tuesday, September 11):

Create a set of instructions that inform how to recreate the 3D form you built in class on Thursday. These instructions will accompany a kit of all materials required to build it. Bring both the instructions and the kit into class on Tuesday, September 11.



More assignments to follow.  [Post will be updated.]

Forms for Topic One: Questions, Reminder for Topic Two: Pattern and Ornament

You have two forms due for our first topic of the semester, Topic One: Questions.

The original deadline for those forms was today, September 5.  We have extended the deadline for the second form, WARP-The Tough Questions, until Friday, September 7, at 10 PM.  Your form responses count as part of your Research grade.

The WARP-First Day form is located here. 

The WARP-The Tough Questions form is located here.

You were asked to bring materials to Thursday's class, which will be the start of our second topic, Pattern and Ornament.  These materials will be for your use only, and will be for the purposes of both drawing and building a form.  You will be instructed in class as to the specifics.  If you do not bring materials, you will not be able to work in class, and will be graded accordingly.  Thursday's class work will be graded, in-class exercises.  These exercises will also need to be documented on your blogs.

You will also have an assignment due on September 10th for Topic Two: Pattern and Ornament, which begins Thursday, September 6.  That assignment will be announced in class.  You're being informed now so that you can better budget your time.

Your blog should be set-up by today.  See the previous post for more details.

Pattern and Ornament, Small Work #1 Addition

Hi WARPies!

Kathleen and I forgot to mention that you need to bring in materials so one of your classmates can recreate your 3-D manifestation (Small Work #1) from the instructions/plans you are writing up. 

SO! 

Bring in your detailed instructions and all the materials you used in the creation of the work--enough to make the work again. This will be an in-class project.  Please share the word so everyone gets this info. 

So sorry about the lateness of this message!

Best,

Don & Kathleen

Assignments and Due Dates- Topic #2:Pattern and Ornament. Part 2.

Topic #2: Pattern and Ornament

Overview

In the previous topic, we considered the environment around us as a source of inspiration for art-making. We asked you to consider the legacy of received knowledge regarding skill-sets you already had. The purpose of this was to, in part, open your eyes to the categories and biases you might personally impose on your idea of art.

This topic will be a consideration of what is frequently referred to as the ‘decorative or applied arts’. The term itself is embedded with the same sorts of categories and biases that plague what can be considered ‘fine arts’, and we will address those concerns throughout the topic.

In addition to looking at numerous examples of the use of pattern and ornament throughout history, we will be focusing on the design process itself.

The design process includes, for our purposes: conceptualization, planning, preparation and execution.

In this section,  you will design and create the following:

1) A 3-D manifestation of one of the 2-D symbols in your Form-based Language.

2) A 2-D visual plan for either a repeat pattern or a low-relief ornamental form.

3) A set of drawings/plans for a chair of your design. 

4) An ambitious artwork inspired from your chair design.

Assignments and Due Dates

Small Work #1. Language: 2-D to 3-D translation. Due Thursday, Sept 28th. 

Create a physical manifestation of one of the symbols in your Form-based Language. You will construct a fully three-dimensional version (not a low-relief structure) of your form using planar materials (paper, cardboard, matboard, etc.). Your form should fit well into a volume of approximately 4” in all dimensions.

In addition to the object,  you will create a set of instructions describing the process so that one of your classmates can recreate the structure. Be sure your instructions are clear, concise and complete. They can be a combination of image and text on paper, and should physically describe all aspects of the construction of your object.

Small Work #2. Using Pattern as reference. Due Thursday, Sept 28th. 

From the furniture section of the pattern book, A handbook of Ornament, choose a chair pattern that best communicates either your personality or a personality you would like to project. Identify your choice by writing down the image plate# and reference from the book. In your sketchbook, write down the personality trait you are seeking to convey. 

Next, draw the chair pattern in your sketchbook and be sure to upload it to your blog. The height of the drawing should be no less than 5". Detail and accuracy counts. You will be working from this chair pattern for the next two assignments.

Additional blog research (observational): look for pattern and ornament in your daily world and record it via photo in a blog post. Get at least 5 examples.

Required Reading Response. Due Monday, Oct 2nd by midnight. 

Respond to this --> reading <-- from the Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh: Ornament and Pattern. 

Link to the on-line questionnaire is here. 

Small Work #3. Incorporate a Repeat/Ornament. Due Tuesday, Oct 3rd. 

With the chair pattern and personality trait in mind, create a 2-dimensional visual plan for either a pattern-repeat or a low-relief ornamental form that can be incorporated into a chair you will be designing. You will choose either a repeat pattern or an ornamental relief. Not both. The pattern/ornament must be no smaller than 7” on the shortest dimension.

Notes:
We will provide you with a demonstration of the creation of a pattern-repeat by hand, as well as examples of geometric motives to use as organizing structures for the application of repeated form.

This pattern-repeat or low-relief ornamental form must be integrated into your chair design for the next assignment so be sure it makes sense with the chair pattern and personality you selected in assignment 2.

Small Work #4.  Design your chair. Due Tuesday, Oct 3rd.

Based on the pattern selected in assignment2 and the repeat/ornament you created in assignment 3, design a chair that communicates your selected personality. Your design will be communicated in four detailed drawings each measuring 8"x10". The specific drawings are: Front View, Side View, Top View, Repeat/Ornament Detail view of the Repeating Pattern or Ornamental Relief.

In-Class Work Day. Thur Oct 5th. 

Cropped section activity and workshop access. 

In-Depth Project. Abstraction of the form. Due Tue, Oct 10th.  Final Topic#2 Critique.

For your in-depth assignment, you will take the cropped section from your chair design (SM#4) and use it as a starting point to create an ambitious artwork. There are no limitations on materials or techniques, only size. The piece should be no smaller than 24" in the smallest dimension. 

Assignments and Due Dates- Topic #2: Pattern and Ornament. Part 1

Our next unit topic will be a consideration of design, specifically through the lenses of both Pattern and Ornament in art, craft and architecture.

Here are your first two assignments.

1. Read, and respond to the Ornament text below.  DUE Monday, September 25th at midnight.

Ivins, William M. ""Ornament" and the Sources of Design in the Decorative Arts." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 13, no. 2 (1918): 35-41. Available on JSTOR through the MDC Library.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3254155

Here is the link to the google form with the reading response worksheet.

2. Sketchbook Work: Form-Based Language. DUE on Tuesday, September 26th. 

In your sketchbook, develop a personal language of shapes that draw upon your own experiences and visual environment--you can also think of this as a symbolic system which visually represents thoughts, places, actions, events, conditions and sentiments which are important to you. Avoid clichéd, and commonly received versions of imagery. For example: the use of a red octagon (stop sign) to indicate the cessation or end of something would be both clichéd and commonly received, as would the graphic representation of a ring (wedding or engagement), to indicate romantic commitment.  Your Form-Based Language can draw upon and refer to commonly received symbols, but must be refreshed by being made your own through some act of transformation. 

3. REQUIRED outside museum visit. Wolfsonian. DUE MONDAY, October 2nd at midnight.  

The Wolfsonian FIU

1001 Washington Avenue

Miami Beach

305 531 1001

You will specifically respond to the permanent collection show, Art and Design in the Modern Age.
  

I advise you to also tour other exhibits in the museum, as they will all tie into to topics introduced later in the semester. You will be able to substitute one outside visit this semester, if you are unable to attend a required one, so preparing good notes that allow you to create a response to one of the museum's other shows would be wise.

These are the museum's hours (please note the free hours on Friday evenings; regular admission for students is only $5, however, with your ID):

Mon, Tue, Thu, Sat     10am–6pm 

Wed                               Closed

Fri                                  10am–9pm (free 6–9pm)

Sun                                noon–6pm

Here is the link to the google form with the reading response worksheet.