Steve's Popcorn Quilt

When I visited the African Quilt exhibition at the Nelson Gallery in the Art Building, I wasn't sure what to expect. At first glance, there didn't seem to be anything particularly special about these quilts other than their somewhat daunting size, but once I took a step closer to look at the amazing array of colors and the intricate details, I could tell these weren't just another bed warmer.

Steve's Popcorn Quilt was one of the most interesting quilts because it didn't look like one. Yes, it's made of hundreds of patches sewn together, but it isn't even close to the traditional quilt with cotton batting. What's even more amazing and jaw-dropping about this quilt is that it was made in the late 1800s, which meant colored and patterned cloth weren't easy to find. This is a quilt one would expect to have been created, at the earliest, sometime in the mid-1900s.

The individual popcorn-like patches are all the same shape and size, which give the quilt a general sense of pattern. However, none of the twenty four-by-four boxes consist of the same order of patterned cloth. If one looks at the quilt from afar, the randomly-ordered boxes of colored patches are no longer evident; instead, they are unified by a solid grid layout of lavender-colored patches.

Visit from HappySlip

[I really wish I had a photo to document Christine Gambito / HappySlip stopping by at our lecture, but I was lame and forgot my camera.]

Having Christine Gambito, also known as HappySlip from YouTube, stop by our lecture on Wednesday was, first and foremost, such a priceless experience. She's a YouTube star! But she, humble that she is, still found the time to come to talk to us about how and why she does what she does.

Christine talked about finding inspiration within her family, as well as from other videos. That goes to show that even the best of the best, or in this case, one of the funniest people on YouTube, don’t come up with all their material on their own. She knows how to tell a story and she knows how to make her audience laugh, but without hilarious family scenarios to reenact or a ridiculous security alarm system ad on TV to make fun of, she wouldn’t have anything to share with her fans.

She also addressed the issue of females being more prone to compare, and I can relate to that on multiple levels. If she finds herself over comparing her videos with others, she stops watching; when I find myself over comparing next time, I can’t just turn off my thoughts, but I will find something more positive to think about.

While I wasn’t exactly starstruck to the point of hyperventilation, the whole thing did strike me as surreal. All my friends were jealous when I told them HappySlip not only came to my Design lecture, but also took a picture with me after. I definitely learned more about the creative process that design is a part of in every different kind of media.

Bum, Bum, You've Been Here Before

This sculpture has been consciously or unconsciously seen by every student that goes to UC Davis. At eleven feet tall, it is an impressive mass of cast aluminum and bronze, and quite hard to miss as well. Bum, Bum, You’ve Been Here Before was created in 1967 by Tio Giambruni, who taught in the Department of Art here at UC Davis from 1961 until his death in 1971.

What makes this sculpture so captivating is the fact that it encompasses an ironic concept: industrial elegance. The pipe-like structures curve to create a beautiful and flowing rhythm throughout the figure.

The vertically standing pipe in the center of the sculpture, well over five feet above the rest, is the emphasis of this piece. The pipes extending on either side help balance the standing portion of the sculpture.

If the pipes were any narrower, the sculpture would seem empty, with more negative space occupying the center. However, if they were any wider, the graceful curvatures and flowing turns of the sculpture would no longer be visible, lost in the width of the pipes. With proportions of this scale, the pipes are the perfect width in portraying the ironic beauty of modern industry.

Potsticker Trial and Error

I'm not known for my culinary skills, but I do know my way around the kitchen, and I usually don't burn anything. That being said, I was quite a bit surprised when my first batch of potstickers turned out to literally stick to the pan I was frying them in. I’ve watched my parents cooking them back at home, and they never clung for dear life to the bottom of the pan. I added enough water, I used enough oil, and I was watching over them the entire time. I was frustrated.

My friend whose pan I borrowed then added that her pan wasn’t nonstick. Ah, that was a big problem. I then sought to borrow one from student housing. After going through the same process with a second batch, borrowing a glass lid, adding more oil than necessary and standing next to the stove for the entire half hour, I was impressed. The potstickers were cooked thoroughly, slid off the pan easily, and the bottoms were fried to a perfect golden-brown.

These beat those of my parents’ and even my brother’s; never had I eaten potstickers with as much crunch as that second batch. Of course, I added more oil in fear that they would stick to the bottom of the pan again, but they certainly tasted better that way.

I was glad I learned from just one trial. Sometimes, it has nothing to do with the artist. You may be using the wrong utensils. Other times, you need to use different ingredients or adjust your recipe. But every time you have fallen short of expectations, you should always get up and consider what went wrong.

The Hello Kitty Appeal

I doubt anyone doesn't know who Hello Kitty is. Everyone knows her; if not for her irresistible charm, then for her gag-inducing cuteness.

But why is her appeal so universal? Why is it Hello Kitty that may be the only thing in common between a girl in third grade and a woman well into her thirties? What is the secret to the success of the big-headed, bow-sporting, mouthless white cat?

The lack of a mouth is one of her most defining characteristics, and Sanrio’s best marketing strategy. According to Ken Belson and Brian Bremner, co-authors of Hello Kitty: The Remarkable Story of Sanrio and the Billion Dollar Feline Phenomenon, “The cat has no mouth, and this represents a major source of emotional association for buyers, as they can project many different feelings onto the little cat.” [source: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/281259.html] The original designer, Ikuko Shimizu, had created her so because she “speaks from the heart,” [source: http://sites.google.com/site/hellokittyoh8/howdidhellokittygettobethehellokittywekn] but whether accidental or intentional, omitting a mouth from the design has definitely made a significant contribution to the now multi-billion market of Hello Kitty.

Her simple face is easily recognizable, and adaptable for different lines of products. What started off as mostly stationery, school supplies, and accessories targeted at pre-teen girls has expanded to include every product imaginable aimed at females of all ages, with expensive jewelry and a makeup line reigning in the celebrities and adolescents.

Celebrating her thirty-fifth birthday this year, Hello Kitty is only gaining more popularity. A universally-appealing phenomenon is hard to come by; one that has lasted for over three decades and shows no signs of stopping? That’s Hello Kitty.

The Bee

My friend and I decided to visit Berkeley this summer to audit lectures before college and to visit a friend who was taking classes. As I walked out of one lecture hall, I spotted a bee hovering above a bush, zipping back and forth between flowers. I waited for the preoccupied bee to land before taking the photo. I thought nothing of it then, other than a photo that captured an intimate moment in nature between two interdependent species, but I now find that it portrays the role between the designer and society in a number of ways.

Just like the bee that flies from flower to flower to draw nectar and, ultimately, to make honey, an artist draws inspiration from different works of art to create a single masterpiece. Even the greatest artists that ever lived drew inspiration from sources outside themselves, one predominantly more often than the rest: nature. The flowers can also represent the different people an artist keeps in mind as he or she designs. Every time the bee lands, it leaves behind a slightly different blend of pollen from the previous landing as it picks up a new variation, like the artist that adds fresh ideas to his palette with each project he slaves away for, altering his approach or picking up techniques used by other artists, gaining experience and stray bits of wisdom along the road.

The relationship between the bee and the flower is one that must be mutual. The bee gathers nectar from the flower, but in return, it helps pollinate the flower. An artist would be nothing if the audience neither criticized nor praised. The audience, on the other hand, wouldn’t care for the artist’s work if it was too abstract to comprehend. Both the artist and the audience must reach an equilibrium in which one side benefits as much as the other.

Stone Soup

The first time I participated in anything close to the Stone Soup activity I had in my design class on Monday was on Monday. I’ve completed projects in which the materials are recycled, but Stone Soup was different from those projects on one fundamental part: we could create anything. The resulting product didn’t have to represent anything. And unlike previous projects, the process was just as important as the product.

Our group of six worked well; together from the beginning to the end. We laid a ripped up paper bag flat for our canvas and decided to use three colorful CDs one girl had brought as the centerpieces. It was agreed early on that this was going to be a mobile of sorts, a collage with moving, dangling pieces. A lot of string was used to hang objects, leaves picked up off the ground were added to the collage, and glue was used as an adhesive, as well as a decorative garnish.

While I loved that our group chemistry was collaborative and pleasant, there wasn’t enough communication. We had a central idea and each person added their own touch and interpretation, which were great by themselves but a jumble of a mess when everything was put together in the end. I can see why designers, as Max Azria puts it, “need to be team players.” The key to a great design is communication; communication within the design team, communication to the consumer.

In my honest opinion, the individual elements of the mobile were more aesthetically pleasing than the product as a whole. Our mobile had no shape or form or foundation upon which it was built. There were too many different things going on at once, but of course, the point of the project was to be abstract, not to create a representation of something. That’s exactly what we did.

Haha Hoho vs Huh Huk

When I visited the Design Museum on Sunday, I was immediately drawn to this pair of digital prints hung side by side. The two canvases are exactly the same in dimension, shade of pure snow white, and use of the hieut character, encased by the same thin, black frame. The similarities end there.

The pring on the left, titled Haha Hoho, sounds just like the emotions it is meant to express. Bursting with the vibrant colors of bright green, brilliant magenta, and neon orange, one can feel the explosion of laughter, joy, and happiness emanating from the canvas. the curvature of strokes resembles, as artist Hyunju Lee stated, "the shape of an ebullient smile."

The print on the right, titled Huh Huk, is a slate gray, dark blue, and pine green composition of straight lines with hieut characters scattered sparsely among the dull-colored stripes. The flat, straight lines coupled with the somber colors convey a grave and serious mood, or perhaps the gloominess of a rainy day. Lee entitled this piece so since it bears resemblance to "the Korean sound of sobbing," although it pretty much sounds like the universal sound of sobbing.

What especially makes this duo so irresistible to gaze at is that they are juxtaposed in such a way as to make them stand out more, in comparison to each other. Haha Hoho, overflowing with overlapping hieut characters crowding over the lines looks like a tropical rain forest densely populated with life, whereas in Huh Huk, each individual hieut character stands alone, a barren, snow-covered forest in the taiga.

Typographic Expoloration in Hangul

I went to visit the current exhibition featured in the UC Davis Design Museum, Typographic Exploration in Hangul, with a friend of mine this afternoon. After a good half hour photographing just about everything hung out for display, I have to say, it was one of the most awe-inspiring and jaw-dropping exhibits I have ever been to, and I have seen my fair share of galleries and museums. This portfolio of digital graphic artwork by Hyunju Lee and Phil Choo is exactly the kind of art that makes me dream of becoming a graphic designer [a dream that isn't going to happen anytime soon, due to the fact that I have no experience whatsoever in HTML or Photoshop]. While their artwork rendered me completely speechless, credit must be given to the atmosphere of the room itself, which helped make the individual works of art stand out.

The dim but adequate lighting of the modest one-room museum provided a nice, calming ambiance, despite the humming of the air conditioning, which was quite distracting. The walls, a rich, deep navy for the most part, were the perfect color to contrast the stark white of canvas. However, there were three off-white scrolls that should not have been hung against a white wall. A neutral color like heather gray would have been a more appropriate backdrop color; dark enough to provide good contrast, but not so deep as navy as to overpower the delicate and graceful nature of the curves and strokes portrayed in Lee’s designs. The collection of typographic artwork was more than visually appealing in its own right, but the mood created by the room definitely helped highlight the focus in several individual pieces.

Rearing Stallion

This wire sculpture, Rearing Stallion, was on display in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art. The craftsmanship of the horse is amazing, even though the sculpture is composed of several lengths of wire. From the precisely bent angles required to form the hooves and the muzzle to the painstakingly coiled wire forming the mane and tail to the gently swooping curves of the hind legs and chest, Alexander Calder, the sculptor, has constructed the stallion to look as seamless as possible, a work of art that stands on its own.

The intriguing thing about this work of art is that the shadows the lighting creates are as much a part of the sculpture as the sculpture itself. The shadows give the relatively two-dimensional figure an element of depth, which greatly increases the visual appeal of Rearing Stallion.

As is with all design, it is not just the product that makes the product. The process is the most important, because that is where one can find the real craftsmanship in the making of the creation. Sometimes, as is with Rearing Stallion, the right lighting adds the perfect touch that one can't imagine what it would look like without a shadow here, or a highlight there. The consumer, the audience, society always adds the final touches with their imagination or their perspective. And that is what design is: more than the sum of its parts.

The National Gallery of Art

My family and I spent the week before July 4th in Washington, D.C. this summer. We spent two days visiting the National Gallery of Art, which is comprised of a West Building that hosts primarily paintings and sculptures of European artists and a few early American artists, and an East Building aimed at contemporary and modern art. While I enjoyed the East Building far more than I did the West Building, it was a sculpture featured in neither of the buildings that fascinated me the most. The moving walkway connecting the two buildings also happened to be a light sculpture created by Leo Villareal, Multiverse.

Multiverse is composed of over forty thousand LED lights that are programmed by Villareal to run through numerous different patterns in a random fashion. [source: http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/villarealinfo.shtm] Walking along, or better yet, just standing, on the conveyor belt transports one to an entirely different world where the continually blinking lights create a stark contrast to the otherwise dark stretch of two hundred feet.

When one thinks of gallery art, an image of a museum wall hung with paintings usually comes to mind, security guard optional. Villareal's elaborate high-tech sculpture of light is not just a visual experience, but a bodily one. Photos do not do it justice; the hypnotizing manner in which the lights move must be physically experienced.

Villareal's Multiverse demonstrates what it truly means to be art. The forty thousand LED lights that create the sculpture is not only marveled as a work of art in itself, but it serves the necessary purpose in transporting thousands of people daily between the East and West Buildings.