megan&shadows.

Frustration is quickly becoming my best friend (with sleep-deprivation coming in at a close second). I don't know what it was but I was having serious issues trying to find inspiration and ideas... and sticking to them. It's even more frustrating because I feel like in Florence, of all places, I should not have this problem. It just seems to grow and grow. I figured if I just keep doing and making things, something will come to me but I'm starting to feel the time crunch of midterms and I don't know if that's helping or hurting. However some new ideas have evolved out of my old ones after lots of brainstorming and image searching in attempts to stimulate inspiration. So I'm hoping that's a sign that I'm out of this funk.

As much as I loved the maps, I kept feeling like I was hitting a dead end (which is incidently also how I felt trying to navigate Venice this weekend.) Every idea I had seemed trite or overdone. Instead, I decided to go on what I liked about them aesthetically. After talking to Regan, I've realized that I'm really attracted to line. I thought the cutouts were a great way to emphasize that detail in a simple, elegant way.

So with all this swimming around in my head, I was still having trouble figuring out where to take it so I made a list of qualities/ideas that interest me:

1. presence vs. absence (and positive vs. negative)

2. bringing art unexpectedly into daily life

3. temporality

Somehow (in a bizarro Google-y/list/mindmap hybrid) this brought me to shadows. I'm currently playing with the idea of projecting shadows on walls using cutouts. I say play because I'm still wrestling with size, placement, materials, subject matter, and timing. I like the idea of them only being there at certain times of the day to be randomly stumbled upon. I'm also considering whether or not I want to combine it with my Sketchbook project. I know that I definitely have some ideas on integrating shadows and cutouts into my tunnel book for Drawing Perspectives.

(Photos in title).