Reaction Paper: Serial Planes
In this project there were two phases. Phase one was making serial planes out of a book and phase two was making serial planes out of foam board. The main challenge in this two phase project was to establish volume from something that was relatively flat. I thought that phase one of the project was much harder than phase two because not only did I have to manipulate the book to make it voluminous but I also had to make it not look like a book. Phase two of the project I found much easier because it was much easier to make the foam board into what I wanted it to be than the book.
Although there were complications, at first, at how to make a book into something that didn’t look like a book I enjoyed this phase of the project much more. I had no idea what I was going to do with my book until I started looking at pictures online. After scrolling through many pictures I found one where a bunch of telephone books were made into flowers. After I had my inspiration I went right to work on cutting my book into sections and making a number of flowers. The total of flowers I ended up with was nine. I used an old book and parts of a magazine so that I could create variety in the flowers to establish color. I didn’t make one flower like another because nothing in nature is identical. The book did not look at all like a book once I was done. I thought that I was very successful at following the guidelines because I created a voluminous object with many serial planes.
Phase two of the project was much easier to tackle because foam board does not have many limitations. I decided to create a stairway to heaven with the foam board. The stairs were shaped like clouds and at the top of the stairway there was a door that was partially open. I cut out footprints in each cloud so that it resembled someone’s journey to heaven. I took the paper off of parts of the foam board to give the clouds texture. I didn’t like this part of the project as much because the foam board was very flimsy and I couldn’t really get the hot glue to stick to the board that well. My final piece ended up being so large that it became weak and flimsy and wouldn’t stay together that well. I liked how my piece came out but I wish that it wasn’t so weak.
My second phase of the project was somewhat similar to Maya Lin’s work because it could be easily made larger into a larger scale and has people interact with it. Maya Lin is all about interaction with her work and how people react and interact with it. My first phase of the project is not similar to Maya Lin’s work because it uses small objects and is much more appreciated on a smaller scale.
