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!