Chelsea Heard

Hi All!

So I had all five of my Show-A-Thing meetings today! I had a blast!

The feedback was so helpful and really helped me to finalize and generate solutions to a few problems! I had the pleasure of speaking with Adam Colestock, Cindy Jeffers, Heidi Brant, Patrick Warren, and Maria Maciak! All of the feedback given was positive and helpful! I finally locked in on my audience and am ready to sail full speed ahead!

I also am 100% locked in on my venue as of now and am happy to say that I’ll be presenting this at my old high school Mt. Carmel High School in San Diego! I’m excited to take this thesis back to the place where it all started and hopefully, educate, inspire and gain some valuable feedback from the faculty, staff and students! 🙂

Here are my summed up notes from each person below!

Adam: Great Job! Immersive Gallery, Size Graphics, text, synergy, connection. Reminded him of children’s museum shadow walls. What role will the footsteps play? What role will shadows play? 

Cindy: Loved the writing! Incorporate myself into it which I plan to do! Empathetic, StoryCore, NPR, Great projections. Keep her posted so she can come see it! 

Heidi: Stage the footsteps like theater blocking. So engaging, possibly selfie wall for people to take pictures with. I thought about how many people I would want in the exhibit at a time. Heidi mentioned that the person’s shadow is as if they’re immersing themselves into the work!” 

Patrick: Visually impressive, love that I’m going back to my old high school to present this thesis! Taking something that matters to a previous place that matters! Mad Mapper could help with the warping of imaging. Would be great to end hearing my grandpa’s take on my initial question of  “is color everything?”

Maria: Powerful! Fragmenting the drawings really work! Footsteps symbolize relearning after learning, continuing the legacy! Beautiful, and Love!

Until next time! 🙂

Hi All!

So I just wrapped up my sixth meeting with Sarah today and all went really well! We discussed my projection progress, along with advice on how to approach tomorrows hectic Show-A-Thing 1-1 Meetings! Sarah also helped generate some new ideas on how to possibly approach my grandfathers portrait that would differentiate it from the rest! I am 99.9% locked in on a venue which will be my old high school! I figured this would be a wonderful opportunity to go back to the place where it all started and share this experience with the faculty and students in hopes to inspire, educate, and most importantly gain valuable feedback! 🙂 I am extremely excited to keep working on this and can’t wait to present this labor of love to the public! 🙂

Until next time! 🙂

Hey all!

Hope all is well!

Played around with my projector today for what honestly might’ve been all day haha! I played around with sound and some past and present artwork to see how this projector works! To my surprise this projector is the bomb! The quality is super nice and all the images are really crisp and clean! I also appreciate the fact that the color even on some hand drawn images remained in tact and not washed out! Here are some reflections I had from doing this!

-Forced me to think critically about my past and present art! 

-GRAPHICS and TEXT! 🙂

-I saw my work up close and large which was new for me especially for the pieces that were smaller. 

-Made me think a lot about presentation. How am I to present this to a public audience in a way that will grab their attention and keep them hooked? 

-This projector play lasted for my goodness a while and played a crucial role in how I want people to experience and digest this thesis! 

I had a lot of fun! I played a lot around with shadow, sound and size! 

-Seeing my work close up and on a large scale made me notice things I didn’t before! In a way it forced me to stand, sit, listen, and absorb. It was almost hypnotic. I  used my phone to move and adjust what was seen on the projector!

-I  used audio as well to really get a feel for what this experience might be like for those who are more aware of Black History and for those who might not be. 

-I hope by getting up close this forces the viewers and participants to experience Black History in a new light. I hope to create a new way to experience a gallery.

Until Next time! 🙂

Hiya!

Just finished up my 5th meeting with Sarah! All went well! The big question Sarah proposed was finding a place that would house my thesis! I remembered that in my neighborhood we have a pretty active community center that could easily be a great place to do a pop up shop! We also discussed the sifting processes when trying to find possible museums that could house this thesis! The goal is to make the most of the time left!

Next steps for me involve, making a storyboard, miniature version/ diorama with placeholder audio, and email, email, email different venues!

So far this process has been a joy and cannot wait to see how everything comes together! 🙂

Until next time! 🙂

Hi all! 🙂

Hope all is well!

I did a janky prototype of the glow in the dark footsteps today! This little exercise was fun and brought me back to the elementary school projects I remember doing. Below I have photographs of what I did. This also helped me to check and see how much the glow in the dark tape would glow in a dark room. I began with two large sheets of paper. Then I traced my left and right feet. I then shaped the tape around the tracings of my feet and then found a nice dark spot to check the glow. I was surprised to see that the glow was pretty bright. I’m not sure yet if I want the footsteps to be filled in or just outlines (working that out haha) but I’ll make more to see what looks better! 🙂

Hi to all!

I had my first 1-1 meeting with my mentor! It went super well! We began the meeting by going over my proposal, and then I went into a little about my thesis, and explained as a recap! I gained some really great feedback from my mentor and had a really enjoyable time talking!

I’m now in the process of thinking about what will be projected and what will be framed! This is all depending on the space this installation is in!

Well, that’s all for now folks! 🙂

Until next time 🙂

Hiya!

Hope all is well! I just finished up my 3rd meeting with Beth and Jaye! It was so much fun!

I went over where I was in my process so far and gained a lot of great feedback from both Jaye and Beth! We discussed a bit about projection mapping and then DisneyLand, because Disneyland uses that method on their rides! This is without a doubt something I’m considering when thinking about space, installation, and experience!

Jaye then shared her idea’s, her progress, and overall just feeling really inspired! We talked about Twitter for a bit. We all then began to talk about comedy, comedians, and stand up specials which was great!!

Overall it was a blast, full of laughs, and ideas!

Welp that’s all for now! Until next time! 🙂

Hi! Quick update!

So this morning I received the green light approval for my thesis proposal and I’m super excited and grateful that the panel saw value in this thesis. It’s always wonderful getting fresh eyes and perspective on an idea, and I always find it super helpful! I received a lot of wonderful feedback from the panelists, and this feedback will help me to continue to think critically about my implementation and process from here on out! 🙂

Most of the feedback received focused mainly on technicality. What is space like? How many projections in what scale? What drawing is projected onto what surface? What is the audio like? Is there more sound or music along with the voice? Is the audience’s position detected? If so, what method is used? Are there any other interactions? What experience do you create with the interactive methods? All of these questions are great and will help me further develop the physical installation process, museum bookings, delivery methods etc. 

I plan to play around more with my projector today, and will upload images later on! I also am playing around with glow in the dark tape for the footsteps to see if it’ll work for the exhibit and installation! 🙂

Welp, that’s all for now!

Until next time! 🙂

Hey all!

Just a small update for my thesis!

I’m currently in the process of experimenting with my projector and sound and will upload images of those later!

Below is an update of how I plan to push this series further! During my senior year of undergrad, I animated a small bit of Maya Angelou reciting her poem “I rise.” For that animation I made it a goal to focus on the words and the accents in her poem. I remember wanting to find a way to bring these illustrations to life, and this was just one way of approaching it! What I noticed were the hints and small gaps of color where her pigmentation was present and areas where it was absent, in the animation and I found myself wanting to experiment with that concept in the illustrations! So here are a few new changes to the illustrations! I found the small hints of pigmentation to be the exactly what I felt was missing! 🙂

Hope all is well! 🙂

-(Updated Illustrations)-

-(Maya Angelou Animation from Undergrad)-