More Pictures

The comments have been many and all positive. What have you heard?

One of the things that I have noticed around school, is that the level of awareness for installation art has really increased. It has created interest and provided a place for many conversations about the meaning of the piece, even though they were not involved in putting it up. Some folks talked about the "environmental impact awareness" aspect of it, others feel like the space has been made more festive, or happy as a result. It has made the entry into school a different experience for them. Others just remark about how clever it is to use bottles in such a way! Many students have added their bottles to the pile accumulating at the bottom. Finally, photography students are using the installation as an exciting place to take photographs for their assignments.

Special thanks to the student photographers who took all these pictures: Beda, James, John, Jamal, and Laken. Did I forget anyone?

A very SPECIAL thanks to Denise Driscoll! Thank you Denise!

The Finished Installation!

Well, we finished at last!

BYOB was a name Denise thought of and the majority liked. (It stands for "Bring Your Own Bottle"). The other title folks liked was "Winding Down"

Creating an artists' statement

April 7

A few folks started to write the Artist's Statement, while others installed the work in the lobby. Ms. B, went on line and looked at suggestions from students and added a their ideas to the mix. What do you think? We need a title, so start brainstorming!

Artists' statement so far:

We decided to create this temporary installation to somehow represent the school and the 1400 + students and staff in it. We began working with Denise Driscoll, an artist from Holliston, and explored a lot of different media. We decided that we were going to work with bottles because they were so plentiful around the school, and one man’s junk could be another man’s treasure . . .?. After some brainstorming, we agreed on the ideas of cutting the bottles into spirals and hanging them by chicken wire. We were able to suspend them all on the ceiling. The way the bottles fall onto the ground makes it a mystical and tranquil scene, like a curtain that leads to who knows where. Everyone in the class interprets the installation in their own way and that makes it interesting and worth the work.
What is an installation?

Installation art uses sculptural materials and other media to help modify the way the viewer experiences a particular and familiar space in a new way. Materials can range from everyday and natural materials, to new media such as video, sound, performance, and technology.
Artists:

3D Design: Public Spaces Semester 2 Class: Jon, Brenda, Jamal, Evan, Georgina, Laken, Alex, Jeremy, Mia, John Andreas, Tory, Anton, Patric, Cassie, and James

Denise came up with some possible titles. What do you all think? Can you add a few?

"Unwinding" or "Unwound"
Message in a Bottle
Breaking the Bottleneck
BYOB (bring your own bottle) ?
Helix
Bottled up
Coiling
Uncoiling
Winding Down

Installation

We began installing on Friday. We learned what all of the difficulties were, and by the end of the class period had worked out a system that we can use to finish up today. Andreas brings up a good point, that we might want more bottles hanging closer to the floor. Today, while a small crew is installing, the rest of us can cut more bottles in order to extend the cascade down towards the floor.

We also need to name our installation and to write a artist's statement that can accompany our work in the lobby. In the statement we can answer some or all of the following questions: Who are we? Why did we make this? How did we make this? What questions were we asking ourselves while we made it? What interests or issues were we thinking about while we made this? Our words can offer the reader another pathway into the work.

Collecting Bottles

Nearly half of the water bottles came from Holliston High School, where I am working on another project with the Art 1 class. At HHS, the Environmental Club recycles paper and bottles weekly, so dipping into their supply was very easy. They are interested in seeing the transformation of their "trash" into your "treasure".

The Art 1 class in Holliston is using discarded clothing as their base material. You can visit their blog listed in Other High School Projects.

Making

Hundreds of bottles later, we are making something magical!

Exploring

We collected water bottles and worked to see what we could do with them.

Focusing

We looked at the installation, sculpture and performance art by many artists today, especially those who used accumulated effort and repeated form. We re-examined our themes, deciding to move away from the idea of creating a fort and towards something that physically included a representation of the entire student body. We also revisited our site and worked to catalog more formal qualities before we jumped to solutions. Many of us wanted to step into the de-construction site of the old building and gather materials from the rubble.

We listed materials that we might gather and use: soda cans, lost and found objects, old clothes, magazines, hall passes, books, paper, disposable water bottles, leaves, envelopes, pencils, milk cartons, straws, spoons, old head phones, chairs, skittles, jolly rancher wrappers, toilet paper rolls, rulers, old furniture, shredded paper, cloth, and lunch trays.

Ways we thought to represent the student body: paper pockets that could have objects added or taken away, bottles filled with something, a web with objects embedded, color, scrunched up balls of paper, furniture, graffiti, many chairs. We also tried to circumvent the pressure to have an "art idea" by simply expressing our wishes of ways we might like to transform the space: create a dorm room, a vending machine, lots of chairs, cover everything with hall passes, fill the space with color, a web.

Themes we considered: the maturation process, boredom, feeling trapped, feeling pressure, need to relax, and fear of the unknown.

Working

We worked in the classroom in two groups on Thursday. One group used blankets and poles to create a tentlike structure to be used as a reference.

The second group experimented with chicken wire, paper, string paint and adhesive to create membranes that might be used to give our space form.

On Tuesday, March 25, we will use what we have learned to review and refine our decisions concerning purpose, site, materials and form.

Planning

We spent a lot of time talking today and covered a lot of ground. We identified several themes to consider: Pressure (from expectations of school and community), Technology (and how it affects social interaction), Membership (as in what are social divisions visible at the school) and many others. We gravitated to the seating space under the lobby stairway as a possible site for our installation.

While spending time on the site, we examined the physical characteristics and discussed how this area was inhabited during a typical school day. Talk gravitated towards the childhood activity of fort-building. Students left with the assignment to interview siblings or family members about forts they had built.

We talked about many ideas that would and would not work in the space, including how we invite others to enter the space and what we ask them to do while they are present. We also talked about ways that efforts accumulate, such as in the growing piles of stones in a cairn, left one at a time, or the prayers in the Wailing Wall of Jerusalem, left in such numbers that no chinks are empty between the stones.

We will begin working with our hands on Thursday to see what we can discover in the properties of the materials we are considering.

Beginning

We had a good meeting yesterday. Interest is strong in creating something that involves the rest of the student body. We discussed a potential site under the stairway, an area with benches and a large window. This area is used for socializing, and the desire was expressed to not squelch that activity with our work.

The idea of mark-making was offered. Specifically, a wall for graffiti or some other cumulative personal expression that becomes an expression of the group. This reminds me of the field trip to the studios of Helmick and Schecter, and their sculptures of many individuals becoming a larger image that transcends the particles (people) from which it is composed.

Tomorrow we'll spend some time in the physical spaces where we might site our work, seeing what cues we can take from the spaces. We'll use the idea of graffiti as a stepping-off point to launch the conversation.



We need to appoint a notetaker so that good ideas don't get lost before they are fully considered and also a photographer so that we can begin to build documentation of our process.

How to use this blog

Anyone can visit this blog by going to: http://publicspacesnhs.blogspot.com

After each meeting, I will post a paragraph that reports our progress. I may pose questions that have been raised, decisions or discoveries we have made, and even ideas we might explore and discard in our creative process. When meeting with a group, I often think of things I wish I would have said afterwards, and this place can hold those additional thoughts. Often, in a class discussion, you may have an idea that doesn't get voiced, please use this space to add those thoughts. Hopefully, you'll find yourself thinking about our project outside of class. Please add any ideas that arise as you move about in your daily life.

I am very excited to be working with you!