Design and Production. greenobjectproject.

Yesterday I got to see some great green products from bluehouse. I found pictures of two that I really liked. The first is a handmade cotton napkin, part of the free trade market. The second, a clever felt wine bottle holder. Simple, but awesome.

http://www.bluehouselife.com/

The items they had were not only innovative and well-designed, but so beautiful, it made you want to buy everything. Apparently you can register there.....

So I checked out inhabitat.com (thank you, amy) for some preliminary research on green products. Very cool website.

www.inhabitat.com

Noon Solar makes bags that are durable but also biodegrade. Each bag has a flexible solar panel built in to help charge ipods and cell phones. The bag will charge when the bag is placed in a window. The hardware is meant to be reused and reclaimed for new bags. The fabrics are organic hemp or cotton and are dyed using pomegranate and weld. The simplicity in design I think goes well with the green object project.

http://www.noonsolar.com

Paula Vidal makes some crazy cute stuff out of felt and recycled fabric. She made a line out of felt, and then made a line out of the unwanted pieces of the first felt line. I would wear all of it. Her blog is in Spanish but the images of her work are great. I want to buy all the clutch bags and all the vests.

http://www.idea-lucida.blogspot.com/

The first thing on inhabitat.com was about a shelter made for the people on the gulf coast who were evacuated from their homes. It’s made out of a plastic called polypropylene. Polypropylene is a thermoplastic polymer that is used as a green material since no harmful gases are emitted during its production. It can degrade from exposure to UV radiation. It comes in a variety of colors, is extremely durable, and is 100% recyclable after use. Anoush Waddington uses this material in a variety of wearable objects.
http://www.anoushwaddington.co.uk/

yay for pretty green things.

CREATIVE CAFFEINE.

Casting – Molding Making.

I decided to look for some concrete casting that I liked for this creative caffeine. After looking at Andrew Goss’s studio work, I searched for more.

I found some great bowl designs by Berlin designer Alexis Oehler. He casts fiber-reinforced concrete and the inner surface is decorated with pigmentation and either gold leaf, silver leaf, or mosaics. I liked the simplicity of form; I think the concrete was a great choice of materials.

When asked why he uses concrete, he explains: “What is impressive about concrete is the hard, cold roughness of the material as we subjectively perceive it, and above all its mass. The special attraction of complex concrete sections is the traceability of the production process – in other words the casting process.”

CREATIVE CAFFEINE.

Green Design.
Eatware compostable food containers. http://www.eatware.com/productlist.htm
Reminded me of those cool little spoon/fork things Jan brought to class. And of items found in hospitals.
Made of 100% natural fibers from bamboo, sugar cane pulp, starch and water – and no chemical additives.

H&M uses organic cotton.
“These clothes are great pieces of the moment. They combine a conscious choice of materials with the latest design, allowing you to look just as good on the outside as you feel on the inside.”, says H&M’s head of design Margareta van den Bosch. The colors are vegetable-dye-inspired and the price is right.

POSCH – recycled/reclaimed fabric bags. http://shop.posch.ca/

Really cute stuff.
Staircase doors.
Storage concept –This innovative and practical design provides for two functions in one. Green? Either way, I like it.

I looked for some cool examples of green design for this creative caffeine. This is just a taste of all the cool stuff out there.

CREATIVE CAFFEINE.

The use of digital design and technology.

I decided to do a creative caffeine for the digital part of this final project that looked for the use of digital design and technology in the local area. This creative caffeine fit in well with the fieldtrip my computer 3d modeling class took to Direct Dimensions. This company is located really close to Towson and does work for a lot of local organizations. They do a lot of collaborative work with Johns Hopkins and other hospitals in the area to create prosthetics and other medical devices through computer 3d modeling. They had a number of various scanners used to measure already made objects or to scan already existing items into the computer to alter in digital form. The guys working there had Rhino, the program we focused on in class this semester, and other programs like Solid Works. This company also used their laser scanners and digital technology to scan the liberty bell in Philadelphia. The computer 3d model they scanned can be used to create exact reproductions in any size and any material. It was really cool to go to their facility and get to see a variety of examples of what they do. This picture shows the scanned image on the computer screen, the initial digital print, and the final product.

They have a section on their website that outlines some of their featured products. Check it out.(www.directdimensions.com)

Here’s a quote from their blog (directdimensions.blogspot.com) that explains what Direct Dimensions does.
“Direct Dimensions, Inc. provides laser scanning, reverse engineering, and digital modeling services, products, and training. We specialize in the application of laser scanners, digitizers, and portable CMMs, and the conversion of complex 3D data into industrial computer models.”

more.

I can't stop looking at Klimt02. Here are a few more artists worth checking out.

Katja Prins

The brooch is silver and porcelain and the "bump" ring is silver and rubber.

http://www.katjaprins.com/

Claude Schmitz

His "The End" brooch is gold and instead of pierced out lettering, it is beautifully carved into the surface of the metal.

These turquoise earrings are artist's Claude Schmitz. Very pretty, delicate work. I love his finishes on metal. This is also his gold and rose opal brooch.

http://www.claudeschmitz.com/

Annamaria Zanella

These are a couple of her bracelets. The red one is made with silver and sponge with epoxy resin and acrylic enamel. The other is plated silver. I love the texture of both.

look.

I looked up Paul Morelli http://www.paulmorelli.com/index2.html His website is very professional, all of his peices are pictured at least once on a woman model. Unique production jewelry, lots of diamonds, seemed like jewelry for (rich) women.

When I looked up Klimt02 I found so many great things. Here are some images of Leonor Hipolito. He did a series of necklaces that were based on fragments of furniture. I love how they look.


This is an image of Joan Parcher's enameled copper bracelet. She didn't have a website (that I could find at least). But I found images of her work and information about her on Klimt02 Site, Patina Gallery's Site, and DeNovo's Contemporary Jewelry Show Site. I love the color she uses.

I found this image on Klimt02. The artist is Jantje Fleischhut and the work was based on the artist's personal experiences in certain environments. I liked the peirced work.

Monika Strasser did this brooch. I love how antique it looks. I found him on Klimt02 as well.
Sari Liimatta did this squirrel piece. She did a bunch of different animal ones, I liked this one the best.
Susan Pietzsch did this piece. It might be hard to tell in this picture, but there are images of oranges and grapefruit on the little squares. I liked the graphic quality.
Here is another picture of Leonor Hipolito's fragmented furniture pieces. Love it.
So the majority of these images were found on Klimt02 website. http://www.klimt02.net/ Amazing.

I also looked up Linda Weintraub. She is the author of Art on the Edge and Over... Looked like a good book. “Art on the Edge and Over: Searching for Art's Meaning in Contemporary Society explains the intractably avant-garde art of the 1970s, 80s and 90s by searching for art's meaning within the context of popular culture and the common trends that have led to such new forms of expression.”

I also looked up Charon Kransen Arts. Great website. http://www.charonkransenarts.com/

I found a statement on their "about" page that I thought went well with what we are currently doing with materials: "The focus is on the artists' personal vision and on an innovative approach, characterized by the use of a wide spectrum of materials from paper to precious."

More to come I'm sure.

thesis idea?

Change has always been a huge part of my life. Growing up in a military family, change was inevitable. Every three years or so my life was forced to change. New town, new house, new room, new school, new church, new friends… This change that I used to hate is now something I look forward to. Regardless of an individual’s childhood, change is a part of everyone’s life. People change. Things change. Locations change. Beliefs change.

When I think about what I want to focus on for my honors thesis project, I know that I want my concepts and motivations to be personal. I want to work with ideas that are prevalent in my own life. The idea of change and impermanence is something I can relate to on numerous levels.

While I still haven’t decided what exactly I plan on making, (i.e. jewelry, functional objects, sculpture, etc.) I know that I want to focus on a few specific forms of change. Change in environment or location is something I had experience with growing up, and plan on continuing in my future. Change in the form of growth is another idea that can be experienced through the ever changing and evolving human life. Change, in this sense, can be social, personal, or in response to current situations. Another specific form of change that has been an ongoing part of my life is change in faith. I was brought up in a strong Christian home, the church and religion being a huge part of my everyday life. While I feel my faith has been the only real constant in my life, my own interpretation of what I choose to believe has changed to fit my changing life and mind. My faith growing up was simply an imitation of my parents. My faith now has become a personal, many times hidden, part of my character.

While I know I want to focus in on the existence of change and its effects on various aspects of life, I also want to keep this idea of faith as a constant an underlying theme within each piece. Faith, even when ignored, provides for a sense of calm and reassurance amidst the always-shifting nature of life.