…is an architect, interior designer, writer, and educator who designed more than 1,000 projects which resulted in over 500 completed works.

ORGANIC ARCHITECTURE — FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT’S PHILOSOPHY

-Believed that “form and function are one”

-Organic meaning the reinterpretation of nature’s principles rather than actually having characteristics of plants and animals

-Respect of the properties of the materials in use

-Cohesiveness of site and structure

-Used organic colors on the interiors

-Houses should be designed in a way that supports harmony and serves as a sanctuary for family life, allowing people to come together, but giving them privacy as well. The above picture of a house he designed called Wingspread is a great example of this, with a family room in the middle and four wings for children’s quarters, kitchen, dining room, and parent’s quarters.

The Guggenheim Museum in               Manhattan

Fallingwater

The Imperial Hotel in Tokyo

Began in the early 20th century inspired by:

-cars

-plastic

-”space age”

Marked by hard lines, bold geometric shapes, advanced and modern materials, and high contrast. Some Examples include:

The Guallart Building in Poland

The Space Needle in Seattle, Washington

The Transamerican Pyramid in San Franciso, California

The Burj Al Arab in Dubai

For my digital landscape I had several ideas when I started out. I thought a lot about vantage point and researched a lot of artists who played with optical illusion and dealt with point of view. I started to think about where we view landscapes from and wanted to play around with different views.

A second idea I had involved memory and the mind’s eye. What do we see in our memory when something in our past seems vivid? Why do certain memories of places stick while other’s fade? I began to think back to actual landscapes I have seen and the event that have occured in them

My third idea though was inspired by my definition of digital printmaking and so it was what I decided to go with. I thought that it would be interesting to combine manually collaged elements with digitally collaged elements to–hopefully–make a seamless digital landscape. I began to look through magazines and catalogues and came across a character that would inspire the whole piece: Dorothy.

What I liked most about the Dorothy that I found in the magazine though, was that she was Dorothy the Barbie which to me, makes her doubley innocent and therefore, exciting to work with. I then set out to find a digital landscape for Dorothy to travel through. I could make the yellow brick road travel into anywhere, so why not a pile of money? From there I set out to make the scene as creepy as I could. I wanted a dark sky, I wanted an eery atmosphere to contrast this very perky and upbeat looking Dorothy doll. From there I just had fun with it. Even though I wanted a dark and eery atmosphere, I also wanted the viewer to laugh at it a little bit when they saw the ridiculousness of Dorothy’s situation.

I chose pictures from my own collection as well some from the internet to balance out the handmade quality of the magazine cut outs. I think that combining the digital and the handmade is the perfect solution for a Fine Art major in a Digital class.

From researching various artists, I’ve been thinking a lot about vantage point in relation to my landscape. My first idea is to have a landscape of memories involving images of places i’ve lived, schools i’ve attended, etc, all in one imaginary place.

I want to morph the images though to highlight parts of them that having meaning to me or parts i have vivid memories of.

Another idea I have is playing with worms-eye-view perspective. Rather than the traditional view point of about 5 to 6 feet off the ground I was thinking it would be interesting to explore what would be seen from very low down.

My final idea is using collage, first manually and then scanning those handmade collages into the computer and adding additional collaging elements. I would collage images to create funny scenarios. Below are two example “sketches” of collages I put together that would be part of a larger piece.

The first two images are sidewalk art by Julian Beever who is a Belgium-based artist who uses chalk to create his sidewalk masterpieces. Beever deals with space in a very unique way. His artwork has to be viewed from a very specific vantage point to make any visual sense. When standing in the correct place it looks as though the image is popping up from the street. Beever projects his drawings on to the sidewalk using a method called anamorphosis.

The third image is of a sculptural piece by Victor Vasarely who played with space in a similar way as Beever in that he is tricks the eye into thinking something is 3D when it is not. This piece, in fact, is completely flat, made out of different colored tiles to give the illusion that some parts are coming forward and others a receding. I think that OpArt as a whole is always about space and spacial illusion which I like a lot because it really holds the viewers attention.

The fourth image also deals with perspective and vantage point. This is a piece by Youri Messenjaschin of Latvia. His work uses optical illusion as well as color to make the pieces appear like they are moving, vibrating, and disappearing into space. The above piece is two dimensional, but tricks the eye into thinking that it is a three dimensional. At the same time, the way that the shapes are placed, along with what colors were chosen to be next to each other, makes the whole piece seems as though is it moving.

When I got into middle school, I decided it was time to cover up at least some of the embarrassing decision I made as a kindergartner, and collaged one of my 14′ by 20′ walls entirely with magazine clippings of Freddie Prinz Jr and Heath Ledger. When I was in 11th grade, in a fit of rage I scraped every last magazine clipping off with a broom, and all that was left was fragmented and peeling wallpaper. So i guess you could say I’ve been preparing for something new and updated to don my walls since then, and have been thinking about what wallpaper means to me since I was a little kid. Other than my bedroom though, my idea of what wallpaper is has always just been something floral, something with a repeating pattern, something to match a time period, something to match the bathroom towels.

When we were assigned to create wallpaper, I knew I wanted to go with something completely opposite from the wallpaper I’m used to, the wall paper I’m sick of looking at. As I wrote about in my wallpaper project proposal, my goal was come up with a wallpaper that you could get lost in. I wanted the wallpaper to be something where each time you look at it, you can find something new that you hadn’t noticed before. I also knew that I wanted it to be black and white so that it could basically go on the walls of any room. I figured that the drawings were crazy and complicated enough that adding color would be overkill. Yes I want it to hold your attention, but I don’t want it to drive you crazy. I wanted my wallpaper to be enjoyable enough to look at that in years from now I wont want to rip it off the walls like I have every other wallpaper.

When I think of the rooms that I’ve spent a lot of time in that have wallpaper, I never have thought of the wallpaper as something all that special. After spending time in a room on a regular basis, the repetitive monotony of predictable patterned wallpaper gets boring. I wanted to create a wallpaper design that will hold your attention. I set out to create wallpaper that has enough going on and enough small details that hopefully no matter how many times you look at it, you can find new things in it each time that you hadn’t noticed before.

Context:

This type of wallpaper belongs in a room in a house that a person would spend a lot of time in such as a bedroom or a bathroom.

Process:

With a pen I just started to doodle whatever came to mind, adding a little bit of cross hatching and trying to make things 3D so that it feels like you’re looking into some strange world when you’re viewing the wallpaper. Then I will scan the doodles into the computer. Though the doodles allude to being a space, I want it to remain abstracted so that there’s no intentional reference to anything actual. For instance, where one person sees a carrot, another person sees a finger, though neither were my intention…let the viewer take from it whatever they imagine!

Below is one of the doodles, along with a close up version.