Well there were many ups and downs along the journey of my star. The beginning was very tough, and I was thinking it was a horrible idea of how i constructed my star. But later I realized it was great! I am very proud of myself, I love the star I made.
I received many good critiques also. There were comments on how cool it was that their are like 20 of you when you look into it. I was told that red was a great color to pick for it. But also that mirrors are used often, and it is not good to mix red and black together, but i did a great job doing it, as one student told me. I had heard that, about mirrors being used often, but i personally have never seen another student use mirrors in their project. I think it is more so that glass is used than mirror. Somebody else also said I could have put my mirror on from small to big, but I do not think it would look as interesting that way. And I did not know it was going to hang the way it does now. Originally the smallest point was suppose to be the top. But after the mirror was on, I loved it with the star crooked. They also liked how the edges of the mirror went well with the edges of my star. I was told there were some gaps in the star, but that was the whole point of it, was to show that imperfection is still beauty.
the presentation of my star
side angle
close up
and even closer
my star : )
I love how shiny the star is. It really makes you notice it. It took a lot of frustration to make, but in the end it was all worth it. Also, i took a while to think if the title, "The Sidewalk of Shattered Dreams." I was about to only call it Shattered Dreams but those words seem so unoriginal to me. Howard Sherman kind of inspired me with a title. I like long titles, not the small two word ones. So I thought of a word that began with an "S" to stick into the title. Some of the students did not really understand the title with the piece. But I love my title of it. I know the sidewalk may not fit a star hanging on the wall completely, but what do you see while walking the streets? a star. and its symbolizing the fact that not everyones lives are perfect. Many are broken, unfulfilled, and incomplete. And when you think of not only a star, but also a mirror, you think of something thats perfect, like a shooting star. And when you wish upon one you hope for all of your bad memories to be forgotten, and only to start off fresh. Which they metaphorically fit together as the stars are always looking down on you.
On wednesday I broke all of the mirror for my star. It was very exciting to do but also a bit scary. For a little while it seemed like the mirror was impossible to break. I was getting really nervous wondering what I was going to do if it didnt turn out good. But I kept trying, using different objects as my hammer and i finally found a tool to do the work. As I began making my star, I was getting a bit nervous about it. The star with the mirror on it does not look very pretty. I was so horrified that it was not going to turn out at all as I had imagined it. I had piles of mirror everywhere, with it organized according to its size, and also separated the pieces that were very cracked form the ones that weren't at all. The mirror took forever to glue on. After I got the major pieces along the edges i thought i would be done soon. But the smaller pieces i used to fill in the huge gaps was very time consuming.
This was from Tuesday in class. I finished painting my star. I painted the border along my star black and used Text as Texture as an inspiration for the top of my star. I left parts of it black and white, and added some red with it. I did something different than I was originally planning. Although its not a major change, it was somewhat. The borders of the star were suppose to be all red, then I thought the red might have overpowered the star. So i painted the sides black, and put small brushstrokes of red on top of the black. It turned out very pretty.
We critiqued projects on Tuesday during class. There were probably ten projects left when I started looking for one to critique and this one popped out at me. i think it was the dark colors, which not many people used in theirs. I critiqued Ashley De Hayos' project. It was very easy to tell hers was proximity and i liked her use of both large and small texts. And some of the words are cut off, while their is a good mix of darks and lights. I noticed the larger text is about bad things in the world like "terror, hateful world, crime, steal" and she said she meant to put these words up. It helps with the lonely dot too. Like its abandoned away from the others because of these words. It was crafted good, but the edges of the white paper were beginning to come off. And it is interesting to my eye because all of the texts are different and the small text if forming a square around the square of dots. But if i were two change anything about this project I would have made all the large text be at the same angle. They were a bit stuck on, and not very perfectly. I would have also used newspaper. I think it looks neat and older using newspapers than magazines. But other than that it was a great project.
