Week One : The Opus Project

Express : Design : Tell : Story

Throughout the week, I’ve been learning about new stories. Stories about an owl that was too big, stories about mischievous fairies and fickle people, stories about ancient Gods, and stories about the people in my everyday life. In studio the first assignment we were given was to read a fairy tale. My story was called The Owl, it was about an owl who who was misunderstood and consequently, it lead to her death. I also watched the movie A Midsummer Night’s Dream, within this story there contained many separate stories. There was the overall story which acted as a sort of umbrella and underneath it lied the story of the Fairy King and Queen, the tale of four lovers, the marriage of the Duke, and the play within the play.

Within A Midsummer Nights Dream, there lied key artifacts. The flower of love and the many different bicycles. These artifacts, like all, depict many different meanings. The flower of course represents love, where as the bikes seemed to be a funny joke. Artifacts in general, for some reason or other, seemed to hol d such great meaning for people. A simple necklace, for instance, of no visible importance can hold such a strong feeling for someone. In Clairissa Anderson’s drawing of her five favorite things, she drew a necklace that her best friend got her from New Zealand, this represents the bond and sisterhood she shares with her friend. 

Multi-view is a word which here means the telling of different sides, or views. Many stories have different views. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, for instance, the story is shown through many different points of view including: the fairies, mortals, and actors. Just in general what I’ve found is that a story from a particular event can be told from one side, but if you go to the other person involved in the event, the story can be something entirely different.

Cycle, a word which here means an ongoing circle of stories that connect together to form one. As stated before, there can be many different stories beneath an umbrella of the major picture. The stories of the Duke, the Fairy King and Queen, th e four lovers, and the actors, all cycled together to form one story, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I feel as if The Opus, in general also works as a cycle of events. It holds ideas, pictures, and information from all of our classes and forms one whole, one major thing, one artifact.

Many things can be translated to mean something entirely different. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the actor is transformed into a jack-ass because well, he acted like a jack-ass throughout the whole movie. In The Owl, the owl could clearly be translated as a symbol for knowledge, as most owls are, and the townspeople were afraid of the knowledge that she did possess.

The Owl

The Owl was a fairy tale that I had to read for my studio class. It's about a giant owl who decides to fly into a barn and rest there for a day. When the owner of the barn walks in, he gets scared and runs to tell the towns people. The towns people then decide to try and kill the innocent owl, but all are too afraid. Finally they decide to just burn the barn down and the owl dies inside.

This story, to me, represents how jumping to conclusions is not the best of ideas.

Owls also represent knowledge, so there could be an underline meaning of people being afraid of what they don't known and understand. It could also mean that the towns people were afraid of the powerful knowledge that this owl did have and decided to kill her so no one else could have that knowledge. Either way, the story kinda sucked cause the bird died!!

Five Images That Represent Me

I created this drawing to demonstrate five objects that represent me. The first is my stuffed dalmatian Buddy. I got him from Build - A - Bear when I was younger and he still sits on my bed. He helps to remind me of my past and where I come from. My next object was a mug. It acknowledges my love for coffee and how I wouldn't be the same with out those five cups a day. I also drew my wish bracelet around my wrist and a cigarette in my hand. The cigarette represents all of my bad habits and I realize as time goes on, it gets harder and harder to quit those bad habits. I've worn my bracelet for five months now and when it falls off my wish will come true. My last image was a pair of head phones. Music is what I turn to when I'm feeling a certain way, it's my reason for everything.

The Opus Project

The Opus Project is my newest project in my studio design classes. It is a semester long activity that highly describes my life, in my major and outside. It is a collection of detailed drawings for studio work, as well as being a mix of random ideas and sketches that I create.