Introduction to Sewing and Welding
Sewing
This project is designed to teach you to sew and to consider the thin line between life, art, politics, and aesthetics. As we see an increase in natural disasters and we live now with wars raging for 14 years, the art of survival gear has proliferated our everyday lives.
You will receive a basic pattern for a backpack. You will be trained to cut cloth, sew, and fabricate the pack. However, you will want to consider what the purpose of the pack is and what the function of the pack it. What do you really need? How do you make a thing have more than its common form and give a common experience to the viewer?
Welding
"The most interesting characteristic of the cube is that it is relatively uninteresting. Compared to any other three dimensional form, the cube lacks any aggressive force, implies no motion, and is least emotive. Therefore, it is the best form to use as a basic unit for any more elaborate function, the grammatical device from which the work may proceed." —Sol LeWitt
This assignment is technically designed to teach you to work with metal, including cutting (plasma cutting and chop saw), welding, grinding, and polishing. Intellectually and visually the project is designed to open you up to the conceptual art making process of repetition, labor and the poetics of invention. You will be directly remaking VARIATIONS OF INCOMPLETE OPEN CUBES by Sol LeWitt, first made as a set of 112 drawing in in 1973.
