Present Joys

Day 66: wed, 29 jan 2014. They are not working on motion graphics.

No school today! We’re having a cold day, so I’m working from home. It seems like a good time to kick off a series of posts about my senior thesis project. I’m supposed to be blogging about this project once a week, but that shouldn’t be a problem because I have a lot to say! A few years ago, I designed and knit a sweater. It seemed like a fun thing.

Since then, whenever I wear it at school, people are intrigued by it. I’ve had a couple requests to make some more. And though I don’t really like hand-knitting for other people, I’ve always thought how much fun it would be if all my classmates (or at least a bunch of them) had matching CCAD collegiate sweaters. After all, that’s the whole point of ivy style—uniformity, dignity. My sweater oughtn’t stand out like a sore thumb; it should have friends. I want to get other people wearing these things, too.

So that’s the first thing. Here’s the second: I really want a knitting machine. I love hand knitting, but lately I’ve been more and more intrigued by knitwear production methods—and how I might incorporate some of that into my own work. Until now, though, I haven’t had a good excuse to buy a knitting machine.

Here’s the third thing: I just really love my school. I want to do something with all that love before I graduate. I enjoy the history of CCAD and how it’s grown alongside Columbus; I enjoy my peers so much; I enjoy the whole vibe of being at an art school, though admittedly I choose not to partake in most of it; most of all, I enjoy the teachers I’ve had. I’ve built some great relationships with teachers—many of whom have been at CCAD for decades! I take lots of snapshots of my teachers and I talk about them a lot, but I’d love to figure out some other way to celebrate them and their commitment to the school.

Those three things make up the core of my thesis project. I want to make sweaters for my friends and classmates, I want to master machine knitting, and I want to do something to celebrate this school.

What’s next?

I’ve got to figure out how all these things fit together. I don’t just want to make a bunch of sweaters—there’s got to be a soul to this thing. Stay tuned to hear what I come up with.

Day 65: mon, 27 jan 2014. Karl is making the nicest-looking thing in our motion graphics class, which means he has the most work of anyone in our motion graphics class.

I didn’t have any class on monday because of the holiday, but tuesday started out with a bang: part two of substitute-teacher-fun with Chris. I made a bunch of random things, including a ring made from my old car tire. After that, I went to friendship lunch, then over to Mr. Burleigh’s office where we talked to Jen about her upcoming business trip, and prayed over her. Senior ad went by quickly even though we didn’t get much done. We are in a chaotic figuring-out-what-our-projects-will-be-about stage.) I didn’t want to stick around for my last class, History of 2-d, but I couldn’t bring myself to skip (of course).

Wednesday afternoon, I had motion graphics. Unfortunately, I was very sick, making it hard to pay attention and understand what people were saying. Mercifully, motion graphics is something of a zoo and I didn’t really have to pay attention very hard. I took a picture of Anna eating a sandwich and another picture of John and Julia looking angrily at the camera.

It was cold cold cold on thursday morning in jewelry. Our regular teacher, Anne, was back from her trip, and we spent the whole class time on a crit. It was so cold in the jewelry lab, we were forced to wear our winter coats indoors, huddled around a lone space heater. After jewelry, I met Marcia Tabler for a delightful lunch in LCC 306. She gave me me a lot of help about my thesis project. I continued to have scintillating, helpful conversations in Senior Ad: one with Mr. Mohr about thesis, and another with Tay and Jen about our One Show 2014 project. History of 2-d Design, which closed out the school week, was pretty dull, but afforded me plenty of knitting time.

Day 64: thu, 23 jan 2014. Jewelry today consists of huddling in front of the space heater, dressed in full outerwear.