I honestly hated my final CD and album. If I was in a record store I wouldn’t pick it up. I had so many ideas for this final assignment and a majority of them dealt with an abstract realism or a more surrealist approach. Sure, my process was cool, but all the same, there is so much more I would have done with it. I hated my treatment of the type. The whole thing just didn’t work for me. The colors were nice, but they didn’t fit how the music made me feel. All around I felt like it was a catastrophe, but I suppose other people thought it was neat. When it eventually comes time to put together my senior portfolio I will probably re-do this project entirely.
Oh yeah, about this project. As per usual, specifications as follows…
• The record packages must be complete – meaning you must obtain the actual pieces of vinyl from a record store, or cut perfect circles out of a ridged material to represent the vinyl records. • Your craft must be solid. Meaning: your final pieces must have impeccable craft and sturdiness. • You must include: the artist’s name, the album title, track listing, record label logo, copyright information, and the provided barcode. • The 12” is the album that contains your song. The CD is a different format and packaging. You must consider how your idea can be interpreted best in the different size formats. • Keep in mind there should not be representation imagery, entirely abstraction reiterations of the sound. •
I struggled at first with this assignment. Originally I had wanted to do some sort of collage so I had cut out my type and began gathering interesting materials. The sun happened to be setting at the time and interesting shadows were being cast, so I grabbed my camera and began collaging photographically – introducing new materials and seeing the effect they had in the area I was working. It was a quick process because I needed to beat out the oncoming nightfall, but in the end the experimentation really stayed true to the type of music I was interpreting. I winded up embroidering my album and CD after I had imported and printed my photos I had taken that night. It was a bitch and took me hours upon hours upon hours. (With interesting results I suppose.) The worst was yet to come however, as I had to manually photoshop each embroidered strand back into my original image. (Oy vey, might I add.)
I was really inspired by the work of Jose Romussi and Maurizio Anzeri, who I cannot find a valid portfolio website for, however, the link provided does showcase the work. I hope to experiment more with embroidery in the future as this was my first time incorporating it into my work. I love the three-dimensionality that it brings to even 2-D work.
On that note, I bid you farewell for now.
Catch ya later,
Jennifer Leigh
Oh, and p.s. If you want to hear the song that inspired my design you can listen on youtube here.
If you want to hear more from Tobacco, Black Mother Super Rainbow’s frontman’s solo project, you can purchase the album on Amazon, or check it out on Myspace, (yeah, I didn’t know Myspace was still used today either.)
jen-rants 