Becca's ITP Sketchbook
IN A HAYSTACK: Using only the search mechanisms available on loc.gov, find one item or collection of items and write a short ‘portrait’ of the object. What is it? How was it made? Who created it? How did it end up in the Library’s collection?
Continue reading “Artist In the Archive: HW 1 – In the Haystack”
Saturday – 2.2.18
Paa Joe ( Joseph Tetteh Ashong) is a master craftsman and artist of traditional figurative coffins. The coffins are part of a ritual, where the deceased is buried underground in a custom coffin that is carved and decorated to symbolize an element associated with that person’s life. It’s a celebratory way of ferrying the passage into the afterlife and ancestral realm, an act of empowerment. Some examples could be a red snapper for a deep sea fisher, a camera for a photographer or as Paa Joe mentions in an interview, a hammer for himself so that people would identify him as a carpenter. The family okadi (symbol of ancestors) could influence the shape.
During 2004 – 2005 he was commissioned by the late artist, collector and art dealer Claud Simard to make 13 large scale architectural models of still-existing slave castles and forts located on the Gold Coast of West Africa, now Ghana. Seven of these sculptures are what are shown at the exhibit, alongside really amazing photographs from when Paa Joe visited the sites of each castle, along with his sketches. As written by the curator, Valérie Rousseau, “The models are beautiful and heavy reminders of human commodification in a world that is still struggling with injustice and pernicious systems of racial inequality that have been perpetuated for centuries”.
It was my first time to the American Folk Art Museum and was super excited to visit! It was nice to hear people audibly impacted by the work. The museum itself had me start thinking about the Icelandic Folk Art Museum I visited last Spring Safnasafnið.
** I hope to attach the origami Jacob’s Ladder in the same way that I did in the Fitz & Servo video below? But to a small mobile surface (not a previously existing one like a kitchen counter). Also, originally I had hoped to make a project with a stepper motor, a moon phase simulator kind of thing mentioned in an earlier post here. However the hardware store I went to didn’t have the screw terminal I was looking for, so looked around for other options in the store that could maybe work with the other motor I had and saw zip-ties + adhesive squares. I ended up weaving the zip tie through the adhesive square to make a self adhesive cable tie mount but would definitely still recommend purchasing them in the future ❤ I’m also interested in thinking about a visual duality that could be fun for a jacob’s ladder to flip through? like this version from the 19th century switches between 2 images?
Jacobs Ladder & Servo Arduino Code:
#include<Servo.h>
Servo servo1;
void setup() {
servo1.attach(9);
}
void loop() {
servo1.write(0);
delay(5000);
servo1.write(180);
delay(5000);
}
Fitz & Servo Arduino Code:
#include<Servo.h>
Servo servo1;
void setup() {
servo1.attach(9);
}
void loop() {
servo1.write(0);
delay(1000);
servo1.write(180);
delay(500);
}
Description: Catch the fireflies on the screen to create a melody. As you catch them on the screen, they are caught from the “sky” and appear in real time in a mason jar (as illuminated LEDs). Originally envisioned as a chord building exercise and evolved into a Chance Aesthetics style Melody creation activity.
Once you’ve collected them, you can release them back into the sky by clicking on “release fireflies” button. When clicked, all the caught “fireflies” in the mason jar are released back into they sky (turning off the LEDs/resetting the LED matrix).
30 KM/s 