Gregory

Camargo

Design Studio

Fall 2011

P a i n t i n g b y R o b e r t o M a t t a

In s p ir a t i o na n d t h e I c e B r e a k e r e x e r c i s e

The clear skies, Crisp Air,

Fresh water.

Travel

Abandoned buildings

Music,

Art,

Friends.

Professionalism

San Francisco

Graffiti,

& Good times..

Architecture

A Well-Considered & Well-Crafted

Thing of Beauty

M a t e r i a l s : p r i n t e r p a p e r , t a p e

Although unsuccessfulas an abstract piece, the arrow to me symbolizes a few of the things that were in my list of inspiration:trains-symbolizing action, the sun (rays), air (waves) and water (flowing and smooth). Before having an idea of what I was going to do, I thoughtof using wax , toothpicks / cue tips or even a combination oftoothpicks and wax. However, when I tried to glue the toothpicks together they were not stable enough for me to achieve the desired form. I then tried using candle wax, but this was also to hard to shape - as the wax chipped and crumbled apart. I then looked around and decided touse regular paper. Although it was a bit tedious to create,the arrow came out just how it was supposed to.

A Thing of Beauty I t e r a t i o n # 2

Before even starting the 2nd iteration of this model,I decided to simply draw different types of shapes and see how they correlate to each other in terms of proportion and composition.

As I drew in a style that is usual for me, I tried to mix curvilinear elements with some rectilinear shapes-all while keeping a well-balanced and proportional piece. This mix of curvilinear andrectilinear elements represents the importance of rigidness andflexibility-important in both nature and design.

Iteration # 3

Once again, before beginning the process of

creating the model, I simply “doodled” ideas, and experimented with the connections between shapes and different symbols to get inspiration from the drawings to make a model.An improvement I wanted to make from the last iteration, was to make it more 3-dimensional, as I felt that the previous iteration was as if3-dimensional parts were added to a 2-dimensional object. Instead of buildinga main vertical component- on which everything else extended out from,I constructed the model from a few horizontally-laying parts.

A Well- Considered & Well- Crafted

Thing of BeautyThis final iteration of the model incorporated the same ideas as in the previous iterations, but drastically changed the style, their layout and their connections with one another. Whereas in the 2nd iteration, the wave-like form was used as a support for the structure, here this wave-like structure became a decorative element. Similarly, as in the 3rd iteration the base of the model has a triangularshape that points outward- to show action/ aggression, in this finalIteration, this shape is refined-to make a cone, that even more -so points out and demonstrates action.

Elements:Penetration,Fire,Ribs,Line weight.

Collage Studies

For this first iteration of the collage series, I decided I would fuse the structuredelements of the 3rd iteration with the fluidity of the last iteration of the model.

Iteration # 2 When I started the collage, I was sure that it would be easy to pick out and rearrange parts of my previous iterations of models in a way that would be both visually appealing, but also make sense in connection with my models. But when I began designing ways to connect the pieces of the

models, I realized that a lot of my models were only of importance as a whole. In other words, that the components of my models only looked good I n correspondence to each

other. Eventually though I found a couple of pieces I wanted to use, and tried to put them together. What came out was the mix of rigid and flowing forms. I tried to enclose the rigid structure with the free-flowing forms of my last model iteration. I used my third and my sixth iteration for the collage as they both were the most ‘orderly’, even though with different characteristics. The third iteration was a rigid type of structure, colored white, and had a kind of cold-like feel to it. The sixth iteration that I used was first of all colored red, but also was full of action and even spiraled uplike flames. In this last collage iteration, I tried to recreate what I had done In the first collage iteration, but using a free picture-editing program called Gimp. This enabled me to experiment more, Instead of having to pre-calculate each length and size of a component so that it would fit in to another piece. What came out was more repetition of components, an idea of forms I want to create in the future iterations and different ways of inter-mingling styles and forms (such as merging both rigid and a f lowing structure together.)

For this iteration of the collage, I decided to take apart my 4th model iteration. I took specific components and put them together to see how the pieces might fit together into a different pattern than the one into which they had fit together in the model. While putting together these pieces, I used a total of only three components, and mixed ‘curvilinear ’ elements, with ray-like elements. This combination of jagged lines, with flowing forms, produced movement in more than one direction.

Collage Studies# 3

Although in this collage I only used one element, which was among others in the third collage, I believe this iteration has a more of an architectural-type feel to it, than just ‘play’ with 2-D shapes and how they fit together. What really came to mind when doing this iteration, was the critique of another students work, where Jerry said that their latest iteration not only accomplished the artistic and graphic-design aspect of the project, but also it made sense as a prototype for a model and in the third dimension. So using this advice, I tried to not only configure this piece with repetition so that it makes compositional sense but also would be logical in perspective.

Iteration # 4Found inspiration:

Collage Studies

Final IterationFor this 5th iteration of the collage, I wanted to adhere to all of my principles of design: precise boundaries/shapes, the importance of interplay between rigid and flowing shapes, and the construction of simple shapes out of smallercomplex ones. I also wanted to use all of the intricacy of the 3rd iteration (with all the curvilinear shapes intertwining and repeating), but also the simplicity and the 3-D space-like quality of the 4th iteration. Before I started the process of arranging the shapes, I didn’t know exactly what direction I was going to head in.

Usually, when this happens I browse the internet for pictures of art, graffiti or even nature to become inspired-by what usually happens to be a small little detail, or a vague outline of a shape. This time though, I heard about a certain surrealistic cartoon show that I have never heard of, and decided to check it out on Wikipedia. From that article, I got to the surrealism page, and from there found a great Chilean artist named Roberto Matta. Being somewhat inspired, but still not completely ‘there yet’, I found out about his son, who took part in the deconstructionism movement, and from there found my way to the anarchitecture website. Seeing all these images of both real buildings and digitally produced ones, fueled my imagination to create the 5th iteration of the collage. -Simple structures broken down into complex parts.-

R o b e r t o M a t t a M a x E r n s t

The End