My project for the final was simple, have others around me give me assignments on what I should do. It could be anything, an action, a drawing, or process. The one guideline that I gave each person who wanted to participate was that it had to be personal to our relationship, i.e. it had to be about how we know each other, or something about the relationship we have as acquaintances. This would overall make a body of work about the friendships and relationships that I have been apart of throughout my life, in a way growing to become almost autobiographical illustrations of my experiences with others. These projects and assignments are on going and the list of them is being added to often. Below is a list of the people and their assignments to me, followed by my responses to their assignments:
Maya De Ceano-Vivas: Maya and I relationship started about a year ago. We first met in an AIGA meeting. Near the end of the meeting one of the officers said that the next meeting will be on January 31st. Maya, at the time, was standing next to me. I leaned over to her and whispered, "The next meeting is on my birthday." I had never talked to her in my life, but figured I should mention it. A few days later Maya showed up in the painting studio where I was working on finishing up a work and handed me a piece of paper. The outside was folded in half with my name on it, on the inside it said "Happy Birthday" with a picture of a cake. Her assignment to me was to recreate that event or experience. She helped me and we collaborated up a plan. We made a birthday card for all of the students in the class so they could be Ryan. I had all of the students sit in a circle and then I whispered into the ear of the person next to me that my birthday was on the next meeting, then they passed it down. Everyone got to experience hearing and telling that my birthday was on the next meeting. After it got all the way around, Maya handed everyone a card that was identical to the one that she had given me a year ago.
Sarah Flora: Sarah and I relationship was formed around being in the studio at night working on paintings. Her and I like to joke a lot, and sometimes about hipsters. Her assignment to me was to make a work of art based off labels in society. My final design for her works are two watercolor paintings/collages. One night she was over and wanted to work on the assignment and collaborate with me on it. We went to the store and she bought these bottles of beer that she said she really liked. As she drank them I noticed that she started to peal the labels off of the bottles, every-time. When she finished there were wrappers all over the table. I kept them and produced these two works. A representation of labels in a literal sense. A representation of mass production. A representation of Sarah's drink of choice. In a way, the beer that labels her.
Rachel De Cuba: Rachel and I worked together for a couple months. She actually got me the job that I currently have at The Clog Shop. She is a good friend and one that has stuck with me through all these semesters here at Flagler. Her assignment to me was to deal with how the relationship that we had as coworkers. At The Clog Shop we have to basically memorize information about each shoe that comes in the doors. The Anna Clogs are one thing in particular that people always come into the shop looking for. Rachel trained me on what I know about the clogs. Things like they are handmade in the USA, that they are great for standing long period for nurses and teachers. For her piece I wrote all of the things that I most commonly say to people when they try them on or when they are looking at them. Because we had to memorize all of the information I made like at "visual note" on a pair of the clogs so it would be easier to remember what to say. I usually look for clues or hints in things to see if I can understand it better. This is a representation of what goes through my head when people try them on.
Whitney Freeman: Whitney and I met in high school at the lunch table. She always brought her lunch and I always brought mine. She always had a can of coke to drink and I always had a bottle of water. I started giving her a hard time about it all telling her that she is going to explode if she keeps drinking all that coke. Her assignment was based off of how we met.What I decided to do with this assignment was set up five cans of coke, I shook them up and set them in the center of a five different sheets of paper and then opened them to have them explode all over the papers. Its more of a literal and actual process that went into this one. I used five sheets of paper because there were five days in the week that we had lunch at school, and thus, five cans of coke. After the coke dried I took some of the left over soda and mixed a little ink into it and wrote with a brush, "you're going to explode" just to emphasize or make aware of the single line that I would say that started a friendship.
Jim Freeman: Jim's assignment to me was to make a work of art that was centered around the idea of street art and Miami graffiti. I introduced him to the "Exit Through the Gift Shop" documentary by banksy. He took that as something that I take interest in and assigned me something that was relating. While looking at street art and Miami graffiti I thought about my summer between my freshman and sophomore year, I worked on painting 8 murals. There are similar elements in the two works that I was part of. Angular lines and drop shadows off shapes help to give the sense of illusion and space. The bright colors come from looking at the works in Miami, bright colors and eye catching subject are prevalent. I used tape to help me get straight lines for the geometric shapes and used solid, opaque colors.
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