File - Monmouth Art

Foundations: Visual Thinking – ART 104
Fall 2015
Instructor: Astri Snodgrass, Adjunct Faculty in Art
Luther College
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Repair to Transform
To upcycle – reuse (discarded objects or material) in such a way as
to create a product of a higher quality or value than the original.
Framing the conversation:
Read: The Art of Repair, Philip Ball
http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/philip-ball-art-of-repair/
Watch: The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Connections Better
broken
http://www.metmuseum.org/connections/better_broken#/Feat
ure/
Contrast between control and chaos
Listen: NPR’s Talk of the Nation, Feb. 4, 2003, “The Quilts of
Gee’s Bend”
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=970364
Kintsugi – Japanese golden repair.
Philosophy of breakage and repair
as part of the history of an object.
Related concepts:
wabi sabi – Japanese aesthetic of
imperfection and transience
mono no aware – “a sensitivity to
ephemera”
Guidelines:
Find something broken, in disrepair, obsolete, or falling apart. Make
something with it; make it better than it was before. Transform it, don’t
just repair it.
There should be a significant change in its form to make it more
functional, more aesthetically pleasing, and/or more valuable. What
you pick to transform should guide how you transform it.
Remember, it’s how you do what you do that gives what you do meaning.
Bars and String-Piece
Columns, 1950s, cotton, 95x76
inches, by Jessie T. Pettway (b.
1929)
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Push yourself to generate a number of ideas, take the time to try a
few out, and decide which one to move forward with.
Questions to consider:
What does it mean to repair something that’s been broken? Why repair something the first
place? What values does the art of repair reflect?
What’s the difference between repair and transformation?
Related concepts:
Found object, the readymade
Foundations: Visual Thinking – ART 104
Fall 2015
Instructor: Astri Snodgrass, Adjunct Faculty in Art
Luther College
!
Student Example:
Broken tambourine, sticks, tassel
Student Example:
Wind chimes made from old flute
Students are asked to watch, listen, and read in
preparation for a class discussion that introduces the
assignment. In addition, they bring in a broken object
to have something to work on for the first day.
Students were given four class periods to work on this
project and expected to be working outside of class.
Student Example:
Assemblage of broken glass objects and hot glue