Opus entry 9 - [RE]ACTIONS

I’m nine weeks in to my first semester back in college after taking 5 years off. What is my REACTION? I definitely have a lot of thoughts and opinions about what I have learned, the work I’ve done, and what I think about moving forward in the program. Most of my reactions I can’t really talk about hear. But I will explain how the five focus words for this weeks entry work with the idea of REACTIONS.



What you see in the photo above is a full scale model of the base of a coffee table I’m working on. The piece you see is one of two that will sit side by side t support a glass top. The form is created by one piece that is repeated 3 times in ROTATION. The initial shape is inspired by a bird but when they are rotated and connected, the form looks something like a bowl. Another use of rotation we have learned about in history class is the trade routes dating back to 1858 where Europe and Asia established the intermingling and influence on each others cultures.



The period we recently discussed in history class included the MOVEMENT of societies; largely important, the movement of the colonial Americans to present day America. During the revolutionary period, there was a lot of movement of cultures exploring and trading with different parts of the globe. In the perspective drawing above, the many lines moving toward the vanishing point create a lot of MOVEMENT of the eye around the image.



The word REFLECTION can be used in a couple different ways. In one sense, reflection could mean looking back and think about something that has happened and sorting it out in your head, much like a REACTION. In another sense, reflection can mean the mirror image of anything in a shiny surface. The drawing above is a reflection in the literal sense because it is symmetrical, a horizontal reflection of itself from the center outward. But in another sense because it is my reflection of how I was inspired by tree branches I was looking at one day, I reacted, and came up with this composition drawing that I later turned into a painting that is seen in last weeks post.



The premise of the study of history involves looking at the SOURCE of where everything that came before us originated. In the above image, you see the staircase at the Paris Opera by Charles Garnier from the Massy textbook. This is an example of the baroque version of the Beaux-Arts style. As Massey says on page 31, “For the grander type of interior the prevalent style was the Beaux-Arts, so called because its SOURCE was in the teaching in of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.” We are now moving into the study of the nineteenth century, where due to the rise in technology and travel, the sources of inspiration for things become more intermingled and diverse.



All along the road of knowledge we are pursuing the ILLUMINATION of not only our field of study, but also the illumination of life, culture and original ideas. Over the past week in both the drafting and the drawing class, we have been working on perspective drawings of an interior space which we had complete creative control over. In the above image, I chose to ILLUMINATE the room will windows that wrap the entire space. In particular, the skylights were very important in achieving a well illuminated room.