I owe a lot to Dr. Bruce Saari and his colleagues who founded International Community School in Kirkland (my junior high and high school), because of the curriculum that they laid out for us. I took art classes from 7th through 11th grade, which were not only a creative outlet but were lessons in how to think and see differently. Today at Willamette, I’m continuing on that path with my Fundamentals of Design class.
Professor Michael Boonstra has done a great job with our class focusing on the elements that make up what we see. He has pushed us to look beyond what we “know” and find what lines, shapes, forms, and textures truly make up the world around us. Some of his projects have been rather simple in this exploration, and others have definitely pushed us far beyond. The most recent project we created for him was the latter.
—Keep reading to view the work—
In conjunction with Sustainability Month, our class worked on projects that represented different facts from Willamette about our consumption, production etc. Some of these facts included how each person uses 1816 sheets of paper per year, or 23.95 kilogallons of water is wasted each year, etc. Our class period yesterday was spent reviewing and commenting on each other’s images. One image I am particularly proud of is below:
While I am not often a fan of the double-image-juxtaposition style, I was worried that the rocks in the right image below the water were not visible, so I included the left image as well. I like the composition of both, and I love the movement of the right image. I also tried to include the fact in a “comic-esque” font that fails at making light of a terrible situation.
While I received wonderful feedback (both positive and negative) from the class, the most beneficial aspect of the critique for me was seeing my work on a huge wall (since we projected these) and really taking in what I had expressed in this image.
I am generally very aware of my life situation and do my best to share what I have with others, but moments like class yesterday really take me outside of myself and let me ignore my condition to simply think about others. I am still processing many of the thoughts that went through my head earlier, but I wanted to put this image out there for others to see and give thought to. I would love your feedback and encourage you to check out the video of our entire class’ work when it goes up around campus.
