I requested about 15 books — books that seemed like they would have relevance to my project — through interlibrary loan weeks ago and they continue dribble in at this late date. I picked one of them up on Friday: Cabinets of Curiosities: Four Artists, Four Visions. All I knew was that it was associated with an exhibit at the Elvejhem Museum of Art in Madison, Wisconsin. The exhibit featured the work of four contemporary artists who used cabinets of curiosities — or wunderkammer — as their inspiration and point of departure. I started and finished it last night before going to sleep. It turns out to the most pertinent of all my sources so far. The contributing essayists put into words much of what had been swimming around in my head not only during this thesis project, but also during my whole art school experience. One of the artists even shares startling similarities to my own background and interests. Read the rest of this entry »
There’s No There There
This is a bit from the aforementioned Cabinets of Curiosities: Four Artists, Four Visions that nicely sums up my dissatisfaction with being only a digital designer. It also supports one of the central assertions of my thesis: touching and experiencing objects physically “intensifies their meaning.” The interesting thing about this essay is that it addresses how and why artists collect and relate to their collections. I have only thought of audiences for collections in terms of historians vs. the general public — it didn’t occur to me that the experience I was desiring for my project was an artistic one, a creative one yes, but, well anyway… Read the rest of this entry »
Silver(ed) Knobs
The title makes me think of Christmas. 
I experimented with adding “silver” leaf to some small, unfinished wooden knobs that I purchased at the hardware store today. After sealing them with a layer of gesso, I painted them Alizarin Crimson — the perfect color to match the fabric of the box — and then put silver leaf over that. (I learned in my Old Masters class that an undercolor is important — for one thing, the leaf often cracks and crazes, so you want an appropriate color to show through when that happens. It also gives the leaf a little more “life”).
Thesis Paper
I feel like I made some good progress on the paper yesterday, it’s still a little overwhelming, but the more I work on it, the more I get a good sense of how it should be structured. I have yet to bring my massive bibliography into play. I will have to work on supporting some of my statements with appropriate citations. Right now the paper is mostly just my description of the visitor experience and my motivation for creating it. I have yet to talk about the historical/cultural context. I have a good idea what that is going to be, though.
Thesis Abstract
The ephemera of the past — photos, documents, letters, etc. — have the power to connect us to their time and to the people who lived in it. That power increases when such items are held in one’s hand. The crispness of aged paper, the musty odor, the crackle of permanent creases being folded and unfolded, the sense of being in the place of the owner or writer — these can only be experienced with the artifact in hand. My project creates an evocative setting for the physical interaction between the visitor and three collections of artifacts. Each collection represents a person who lived in a time before our own. The collections are concealed within a cabinet and the individual artifacts are accessed only after the visitor has passed over three thresholds — an outer door, an inner door, and a drawer. This series of steps moves the visitor into a separate imagined space.
