5 o' clock

Title: 5 o’ clock

Materials: Wood, Yarn, Glue

For this semester’s installation 138 gallery show, our class came up with the concept of a “Faux-Real” Show. In this context we wanted to have the concept of a mullet, “business in the front, and party in the back.” Along with this concept, we had agreed that our gallery or “party in the back” would take on a wonderlandish, nature vs. man-made, magical kind of vision. Picturing this type of mystical place in my mind, I immediately knew I wanted to make a tree of some sort. Trees and different types of trees have the power in influencing how one perceives a certain environment. Whether they are tall, short, bushy, skinny, large, their shape and presence effect how an audience experiences them.

In the process of making this tree, materials changed from using a real tree, to using wood planks, and then eventually wood sticks. However, the concept of wrapping the tree in yarn material continued to be the same. As our ideas for the “Faux-Real” show continued to integrate and developed, I felt this too happened to my tree. The theme of nature vs. man-made became a grounded concept in my work. The rigidity, geometric shaped lines, and processed wood material formed within my tree, counter-balanced the use of natural material, wood and cotton, which also created a natural organism in our living environment, a tree. This balance of tension my tree created with itself and other counterparts in the show (especially through Sara’s laterns, Kat’s waterfall, and the hanging yarn-wrapped vines) reinforced the push and pull of nature and man-made through out our show.