IP Weekly Progress -- #13

What I did:

Sunday:

Monday:

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Process:

I spent the week on isolating my idea. I wrote a list of the various themes, some scientific like SIPHONAPHORAE to curvy plants. I narrowed my list down and sketched what I wanted most. Not physically productive, but narrowing down my focus.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered:

My small group from the first day we returned mentioned that I really need to settle on one idea. It's true, I have too many ideas floating in my head and this week I decided to make a written list and figure out what I'm truly passionate about. Instead of spending time trying to fold a billion different things I have decided that I want to focus on one subject and one subject only. I decided on the subject of deep sea creatures. Specifically Siphonophorae.

Just to remind you of what Siphonophorae (SI-PHON-NO-PHORE-E) are:

Wikipedia reference:

Siphonophorae or Siphonophora, the siphonophores, are an order of the Hydrozoa, a class of marineinvertebrates belonging to the phylum Cnidaria. They are colonial, but the colonies can superficially resemble jellyfish; although they appear to be a single organism, each specimen is actually a colony of Siphonophora. The best known species is the dangerous Portuguese Man o' War (Physalia physalis). Siphonophores are especially scientifically interesting because they are composed o fmedusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized. Each zooid is an individual, but their integration with each other is so strong that the colony attains the character of one large organism.

I realized that Deep Sea creatures is my original and natural inspiration for my work. My plant work was an idea, but I saw that even in my sketches that I wasn't interested in true plant forms. I really wanted forms that were unique and strange. Mysterious even! I'm trying to display my own personal definition of beautiful and I believe that the way to do it is to follow the very definition of nature I have been sharing all along: a natural phenomena. How plants sprout, how jellyfish flutter in the deep dark depths, are miracles of life. How I have approached my project thus far is my curiosity's growth. At certain points I let my curiosity venture too far and it would "distract" me from my current goals, but now I realize my mind acts just like the process of nature -- and that I constantly trying to captivate the beholder (Myself) and as a result I create form after form through a morphological phase. An example of this is the stages of a leaf's life that I made:

These leaves represent the various stages, or levels, of life. The first leaf is healthy and fresh plucked from the tree. The last leaf is after several days of being separated from it's source of life. The idea of my deep sea jellyfish follows a similar idea, but more complex. Organic forms, according to Ernest Heckel, is a series of ever-increasing complexity. You can look at a leaf and see it as unique by it's shape and color, but take a microscope to it and you see a richness of complex patterns of the form in the leaf's finest structures.

There is a central figure, like the heart, but from there the creature morphs into something more complex and expansive. I begin with this central structure, but it develops "stages" of growth over time due to evolution. Once the creature has settled inside it's environment it develops to adapt to it's new habitat. This piece I am composing is something organic -- where I hang this creature will dwell in it's habitat and adapt to it's surroundings. For it's celebrated life my paper installation is about the audience recognizing the aspects of it flourishing in a new environment curiously while human life observing.

These figures I'm creating are lifesize (Or even larger) creatures. I've played with the idea of creating large molecules, diatoms, or even pollen, but I want something a little more complex.

Ultimately I leered back toward the deep sea jellies -- because these creatures are the original source of my inspiration for IP. How I sketch them look like living plants and that's what I love the most about them. They are these graceful creatures that lack features such as eyes and hands, but have simplied their way of life. They float and flutter through the sea, siphoning their food/using long fishing tendrils, and using communication through biolumenscence.

What I should do next:

Make a model using tissue paper and see where that takes me! Just play!