Care Tags for people

I definatly find that starting a new project is much easier after accepting the struggles involved in the previous project. I went to my place of inspiration the other day, Barnes and Noble and looked at a book called, "Social Intelligence". I found it helpful in pushing my ideas along. It talked about how emotions are contagous and about how the neuronic structure in our brains work. It was really inspiring and definately one of my main interests. The base of this new idea is tags for individual people. Similar to tags on clothing, I want to make tags for people I know personally. I'm thinking I might collect pieces of clothing from these people. I'm thinking of making tags out of the pieces of clothing they lend me. I will use the formula on actual tags to describe my way of dealing/caring for each person. For example. Tags usually have the percentage of what material it is composed of. For a person I may say something like 50 % sensitivity 50% compassion. Next usually comes with information of how to clean/care for the material. I may say something like, "Avoid blunt comments", " When upset, comfort accordingly, Mail this person a personalized card to let them know you are thinking of them. Call and check up on how they are doing, then arrange to take them out for a good time." I was thinking of interconnecting these tags with wire to symbolize neuronic structures and the relationship between those personality types. At this stage, I forsee this taking a sculptural form.

Cup Installation

So the cup installation I've been thinking out is completed. I skipped some steps in between with this blog since I was preoccupied with making the piece. I will catch you up with the information. I was trying to figure out a way to get information about others relationships while still being discrete/not forward with requesting such information. Andrea suggested I do a survey. I really liked that idea. So I wrote several questions on several pieces of paper and put 2 boxes up in school. One was in the bathroom and the other in the student lounge. I asked questions like, who had more control in the relationship? In what ways?, If you could name some qualities to describe you and your partner what would they be? How long did it take for you to figure out this person wasn't right for you? I was really happy with how many people responded and how sincere they seemed to be. After buying a bulk of interesting cups from the thrift store in Davis Square, I sat down w/ the cups, read the situations and matched them up appropriately. I suspended the cups that seemed to have more control in the relationships. They were hovering over the passive cups. I had red string dripping out of each cup into the partner cups. I used textile hardener to mold the string into words from the surveys. I used words that conveyed what these people got from the relationship and what they released due to what they were given. I really enjoyed making this and was really happy with the reactions of those I showed it to :)

One Step at a Time

I definatly feel like my idea with these cups is finally getting somewhere. I made a drawing of it for my Printmaking class that I feel satisfies what I was trying to get at. I'm pretty happy with the amount of information the drawing provides. I'm planning on creating an installation involving multiple pairs of cups/relationships. I'm still working out the details. Today I bought a good amount of cups at the Goodwill in Davis Square. Lucky for me they have a great selection. It's really amusing to think of these cups as people. The cups I chose have qualities that can really speak to interesting characters. Right now I'm in the process of getting familiar with these cups and writing small blurbs about them as if they were people. It's really entertaining. I feel pretty good about where this is going. I hope this project turns out to communicate well and be enjoyable for viewers to experience.