For the legs of the Ottoman, I am using a non-traditional material but in the traditional style.
Here are some references that I have been using for inspiration, I haven’t quite locked in on a shape yet, but I like the idea of leaving a good portion of the leg un-lathed so it retains its original clarity and roundness.
I also found some great references for smoothing out the acrylic back to its original luster:
And some videos to help me work the leather as well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Here is my acrylic before it was polished:
And here it is after it was polished:
http://coletivomuda.com.br/
For my midterm I was really focused on incorporating nature into my lamp. I like the idea that even when the lamp is not on, it still serves a purpose and when combined together correctly, can even be greater than the sum of its parts. I have been thinking a lot about vases lately and so it seemed a natural evolution to add this vase element into my lamp. The first difficulty when concepting the lamp was finding the right balance between the two forms – how much lamp do I want and how much vase do I want? In the end, I thought it would be best to have the lamp be served by the flowers and not the other way around. Although, this resolution does add a few bumps in the road, namely not being able to provide water to the plants, so I haven’t quite settled on this yet. For my preliminary test, I just wanted to see how the flowers would look when I tried to apply a basic geometric form to them. Flowers, and vases for that matter, tend to allow for natural and biological forms, whereas for my lamp I wanted to change that up just a bit.
The flowers seemed to take well to that shape, so I decided to go ahead with that as the basic form. For the test, I used clear plexiglass for economical purposes, but for the final version I wanted to use an opaque white which would allow for the light to diffuse in a nice way.
Another concern was the orientation of the lamp. Do the flowers go on top or on bottom half? Having the flowers on the bottom allows for a way to keep the plants in water but doesn’t allow for the flowers to have any light flowing through them. Having the flowers on the top lets tons of light into the flowers and creates the effect I am going for but makes it harder to incorporate a way to keep the plants alive. (Also a slight possibility of a fire hazard – not good.)
I will follow up with my final along with any iterations.
For my emotional object I wanted to create a form that both allowed me to express that emotion as well as try and work on my turning skills on the lathe. To express the emotion of joy I chose the somewhat counterintuitive form of a tear (as in tears of joy). I chose a wood that was bright and kept the lines smooth and almost bubbly, which helped give the effect of a happy tear if the shape was personified. It wobbles around on the table in nice way hopefully conveys that emotion as well.
I also experimented with the emotion of pride. When I think of pride, I think of something that swells to the point of bursting, something with a big head, creating an unbalanced shape that can topple over at any time from it’s own ego. I would have liked a little more upward movement in the shape to create that effect of pride a little more, and may attempt that in another try at the form.
