Essay on Duality

I person that I have been close with for the past 10 years is my stepdad. My stepdad and I have a great relationship. I am choosing to write about him because of the impact he has made on my life. My stepdad is one of the strongest men I know. He is willing to do whatever is needed for any member of our family. The dedication my stepdad shows in his work is remarkable. My stepdad wakes up earlier than the sun to leave for work and usually is the last one to get home and never complains. My stepdad is also a member of the united states air force, I love this about him because it has made me even more proud to be an American and more aware of what is going on our the world. Ever since my stepdad has become a part of my life I have looked at others in the military with so much more honor. He is easily the leader of our house and family. My stepdad has given me a fatherly role under my own roof that I had never really had. Even though my mom and he have a child of their own, to him we are all equally his children. Never once has he treated my sister of the same dad and I any differently than his own. My stepdad also has never had the intentions of replacing our father. The best part of all his giving is that he never expects anything in return. He by far has one of the biggest hearts of any human being I know. The amount of support and love that my stepdad has for my family has only made me a better person, I just hope to be half the person he is one day.

Kendal Buster

In Kendal Buster’s work you see a lot of repetition. Her work is very intriguing in that aspect because of the diversity in her repetition and the space she uses with it. She also uses very minimal materials to construct her work. She often finds a way to make the familiar strange. I also find it interesting how her work changes looks with different places of viewing. Kendal Buster’s work applies to my current project most directly in the fact that you can see the internal structure that is used to support her work.

Martin Puryear

After viewing Martin Puryear’s website and looking through the photos I noticed how clean cut every project he did was. The craft he has in all his work is precise. All of the work on the website is visually balancing and on a large scale. His work is pure simplicity and beauty. Martin Puryear’s work relates to my current project because you can see how he structures his pieces well and in some cases he has illusions of furniture. 

Description of Exercise 2 Chair Project

You are to write an essay on duality of a person you know in which you can creatively relate in some aspect to the final chair project. The final project of a final chair is to be constructed with cardboard; you can shape it, form it, and cut it however you wish. The only limitation is that you may not glue or tape. 

Chair from one piece of cardboard

Sketches and Chair construction

Description of Exercise 1 Chair Project

Using a 4’x4’ piece of cardboard you are to construct a chair. Guidelines for this chair include, must hold the weight of a person, cuts and folds allowed but removing any cardboard is prohibited, and it must be 6” off the ground. The cardboard should be able to be unfolded and put back into a contiguous 4’x4’ square. 

Final Collage

Final Collage Construction

Summary of Project

Overall, I believe for this to be one of my better projects of think and make so far. I enjoyed the process of building our photo collages and the creativity we were allowed to express. Throughout the process of creating this photo collage I realized how incredibly hard it is to make your original vision come into place. This project was harder than I expected it to be in terms of taking enough pictures, when putting together my final collage and realized I had some gaps to fill and had to go back to location and take more photographs. I am confident in my final collage and believe it is a beautiful piece of artwork.

Errol Morris

Photographs are neither true nor false. All photographs are posed. There is always and absence in a photograph of something that has or should be there. You never see what before, after, or around the photograph. The understand a photograph you must see all the details. The photographs with the most power are iconic.

Psychological Aspects

Cameras have changed the world. Cameras make it possible to see something through a different perspective that you originally wouldn’t of been able to see. The way a place or thing can be duplicated makes the world a way better communicated and smaller place. Every picture has its own story and message.

Master of Illusion

This video touched basis on many things I can already relate to after taking a semester of courses at KU. After taking a drawing course last semester I have come to find out that I enjoy doing linear perspective drawings. To me linear perspective drawings feel complete and satisfying to look at. Linear perspective is important with this photography project because of the position of where you stand to take your pictures. Light and shadow was also mentioned in the video that ties into this project and what time of day you decide to take your photographs. Many of the artwork shown in the video I learned about in the History of Art course that I took last semester. Having seen this work and having prior background knowledge gave me a better understanding of the video.

On Photography

Images teach us their own visual code. Each and Every image and the information you take from it is unlike any other. Plato’s cave to me sounds like an interesting place that I would love to see. The effect that the cave has on the visual information taken from the photographs is so unique. I’ve learned more about how the presentation and environment play a role on how you interpret a photograph. This information is good to know because it relates to my major of environmental design.

The Photographer's Eye

Cameras opened a whole new creative medium for human beings. Photography is a way to descirbe things and shows the photographer’s perspective of a place or thing. The everlasting product that a camera gives is one that will never go away. In this article it lists 5 issues of photography which are, the thing itself, the detail, the frame, time, and vantage point. I think these 5 issues do a great job of describing just what exactly a photograph is all about.