Who remains calm; who treat people kindly; who gives positive support to others; who is being understandable; who see things clearly
Remaining calm is so difficult for me. Emotion control is the biggest XIUXING for me at this age. I easily get angry, eager for arguments, but can’t learn how to say fewer sentences and avoid these negative energy. A grown-up should have the ability to control their emotions, the level of control over themselves indicates the level of XIUXING and understanding in depth of life.
Keeping hands busy is a way to shape the emotion, and that basically the principle of design as XIUXING, finding the process of calming and taking a reflection during this process. Be a tutor for myself and tell me what should do and what’s not. Different emotions brought different presentations on the ‘designs’ or we can say physicalized ‘visualizations’. The aesthetics shifts as the emotion fluctuate. Arts happen any time, it doesn’t matter if the emotion is upset, happy, frustrated or sad. I wish to use this process of making myself busy working with either design sketching, prototyping, making or crafting can accelerate the process of self-control.
Poetic design in the theory is suggesting this self-control XIUXING process presents in an aesthetic way. It incorporates a cultural, aesthetical, religious ways of thinking through the process
It was a concentrated moment for me while my body is trying to repeat a similar posture, I know the work is being done, and the mind is going towards the flow state, even though I’m not sure what that process is called. As I see the natural curve created by the drawknife, the aesthetic blooms. It is about the balance of mindset and respects the form brought by materials
The wood cloud
Open studio 2021 Fallfeedbacks Open studio
It was a hard time for me during the weeks around open studio time. I don’t know how my research is connected, or what am I doing at the time. I was in a dramatic tragedy and dealing with so many dumb things. I was so unfortunate at the period of time and so many bad things happened that were not supposed to happen.
I shift my practice focus from the hard materials to the soft materials for the time. The ceramic working time is inspiring and enlightening a new way of describing.
The irregular shapes and imperfections happening in ceramic is perfectly matching with the idea of my aesthetical points.
Some Traditional Chinese Patterns
Repetitive pattern collections
Poetic design – nature and lighting system Partnership
Some research of ancient Chinese poems with natural inspirations/elements
It is interesting for me to see how natural elements/ natural forms of presentation can be shown in another material.
Referring back to the idea of patterns, I would like to write down my understandings of the surface of the wood. The idea of dot-line-surface-dimensions has been shown in this process.
watermark on patterns
What I define as “poetic” is an ethereal state of mind. Although it can rely on material manifestations, it is essentially a kind of looking-up pursuit when a person alone establishes a spiritual connection with the entire universe. This is where the “poem” is. The times have changed the form, not the content. Poetry has been passed on since it was born in human civilization.
The poetry in everyone’s heart is not the same, and this difference constitutes another kind of poetry. Chinese historian and poet Wang Guowei said: Those who can write the scenery and true feelings are said to have realm. Both the physical state and the state of mind belong to the state. This realm refers to the realm of poetry, and it should also be the realm of poetry. Poetry is the resonance of the human heart and the realm of the world, and it is the emotion that fluids the mouth, eyes, ears and heart. It arises from objects and thrives with thoughts. Once these memories and emotions in the heart are just like in front of us even it’s not, it becomes poetic.
Starting point: design as a diary – a balanced lifestyle
Middle work: how to build or visualize a personal story
Wrap up of project 2:
own history, material, aesthetic agency
not limitied to utilitarian, open to “a thing” extended in design, series of things.
proposisional making. [space of yourself space define your aesthetics]
allow yourself to make 3dimentional composition-sculptural
develop something that is conceptually narratively aesthetically rich -> build meaning on it
integration of utilitarian, aesthetic, maker perspective
using these tools – body movement, how it feels, control of the materials
ecology of myself, ecology of a maker
repligate the natual form of wood
break the geometric brick of the utilitarian design works, breaking the formality
reflect on the tool and body of yourself, how this tool is working with your body.
what’s the body asking you to do with that material
physical pleasure in the sound, feeling
irregularity of the natural form
2021.10.29: focus point shifts to how to catch those inspiring/ encouraging moment of design ideas. The Topic changes to: Design wandering – A revelation about self-existence and self-perception (设计神游：一种关于自我存在和自我感知的启示) see yourself in your designs;
flow state – finishing things in a comforatble state,In positive psychology, a flow state, also known colloquially as being inthe zone, is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by the complete absorption in what one does, and a resulting transformation in one’s sense of time.
2021.11.8: feel something with the design
poetry emotion, sensation of the roughness of the process, SERENDIPITY
visual language feelings of insecurity, longing to be yourself
2021.11.17: state of body – state of mind – rythmn
act of body act of sound , feel intergrated into work
Poetic design: the combination of nature and man-made诗意的设计：自然与人为的结合
Still struggling with the problem of dehydration, one more try has been done.
Yun and I went to the central park and tried to lock the colour and the smell of time, we tried to take the freshness as soon as possible.
We tried to hammer the patterns, colour, smell to the fabric/paper/ wood panel.
The result doesn’t seem like what I expected. There are several reasons that may affect it: material of the hammer, characteristics of the leaves, the colour of the leaves, quality of the printing material. Research fails sometimes.
It was hard for me to satisfy myself. I can’t tell if I’m satisfied with what I made. I’ve been working with ceramics for over a month, but I don’t think there are many projects I’m satisfied with. This week when I was sitting in the class, everyone is working on their own projects, either a plate, a vase, or a cup. I am the only one starring at the clay and doing nothing. I don’t know what I’ll make or what I want. I stopped there for a long time. Then I grabbed a small piece of clay and started sculpting without thought. This time, the weird irregular-shaped pear shows me the satisfaction of making without thought but with emotions.
My aesthetic point: irregular, 随心所欲
What is the simplest way of design?
I was wondering and questioning myself. In ancient times, before people know how to design, they find a flat stone and use it as a table. As their intelligence improves, the functional and aesthetical desire takes place and there comes the idea, human-based design.
I always use the table as an example or starting point of thinking. I block myself to some specific product that limits my thinking in a way of having the freedom of testing new forms.
some way I can try for the next step. Also using the draw knife to shape the irregular aesthetics is a great way to experience.
Next phase of the story. I define myself as a floating person, I was born in the northeast of China and spend the first 6 years in my hometown, then I spent the next 12 years living and studying in Beijing, and I’ve been living in Canada for the next phase.
Thinking about leaves, Yun and I went to the UBC botanical garden to see if there’s any inspirational items can be used.
I’ve collected many kinds of leaves, in different colours and shapes. I’ve also tried to boil the apple peels and try to see if it works. The water in natural ingredients dehydrates easily, and when it dries, it’s really hard to do other processes, it breaks to dust.
There’s an old way of making curtains in my hometown, my grandparents used to use wrapping papers to make colourful curtains that block flies in the summer. I wonder if it can be done the same way as leaves and if the leaves can be colourful as well. The idea was a good idea, but hard to make. Some leaves are quite small and fragile which makes it even harder. I’m thinking if I can rehydrate them and make them connected to the curtains. However, there’s a big problem. In order to make them attach to each other, I have to use tape to stabilize it and also give it a layer of protection. But using tape is not what I expected to show. Then I wonder, is there a way that we don’t use any glue to join things.
Chinese joinery
The traditional Chinese joinery is the brilliant knowledge of wood working without using any artificial materials but giving a strong structure for hundreds or thousands of years. However, the complicated structure and hidden structures are too mysterious to me, and I’d like to celebrate the connections. With the idea of a point-line-surface-3dimensional, I went to the woodshop and tried to create a small table initially.
The repetitive process of interactions is slowing down the time, and maximizing my other senses.
I’ve tried to use the hemp rope to connect all the elements and make them into new combinations.
I’ve also tried to burn it to see how fire is giving freedom to the shapes of the wood, also the smell.
Seeing the natural shift of these cylinders gives me a different way of thinking. Things don’t have to be unified or well designed, just let them be. Free the design, free yourself. Enjoy the patterns brought naturally.
Then I found this book really interesting to read and see how the natural patterns form.
With the curiosity of exploring leaves, I started tracing back to my childhood memories which also are the plants that have a special meaning to me. The natural smell brought by the leaves is also impressive.
Agricultural map of China
I came from the Northeast of China, and there has a lot corn, soybeans and wheat. In my memories, my grandparents grows corn every year, and when I was very young, I tend to stand on the corn pile and seeing the yard from the top. Now even my grandparents are really old, they are still keeping the passions of interacting with the plants. My grandfather especially, really enjoy growing plants, making crafts on his own, practicing calligraphy, drawing, and writing poems.
My grandfather working on the corns
me at 5
Preface
Some testing with breaking down the materials and recreating the format
Papermaking with corn and tea leaves
With the passion of seeing the transparency through the corn leaves, I was intentionally trying to interact the materials with lights, and see how it can transform to. Also, adding the rice dumplings leaves (a kind of bamboo leaves) is the merging of my grandparents from both sides. My mother’s mom has a really professional skill in making cooked wheaten food, and the rice dumplings she made every year engraves in my taste, no one can make a better taste than what she did. She passed away 2 years ago, and I can never taste it again.
exercise of material testing
some other material testings with different material combinations. Including paper blocks, resin+cement, cork+cement.
Jumping out of the context for a bit. I give myself a pause from the story but see when is the time I am quiet, when I feel inspired, and when I have a stable emotion. Also experiencing a bad temper and emotional control this week is giving me a hard time thinking. I feel like everyone is a skeleton wearing skin clothes, and we never know which masks they are showing. To me as well, there are so many different personalities that I show to different people, and there’re requests for me to act like a normal person, and I don’t know what is the real me. Here’s the severe problem, I don’t even know who I am. The research should sit into: under when/what circumstance I can keep real to myself.
family retrospect visualizations and personality analysis.
Based on the material relations, I give myself a map to see the relations without some distractions.
screen design with sectional patterns in CAD
Referring back to designs, I am fascinated with leaves and trying to use them as the main material of the screen design. The leaves are easily dehydrated and very fragile, I want to test with the tangible aspect first.
boiled and dried
I’ve also tried to apply glycerine on the top of the leaf but it doesn’t work. The waxing process works well.
some testings on keeping the transparency but giving a stronger strength to the leaf
fabric tests to give another layer of strength, but it still breaks on the strains, it was an exhausting process seeing the problem still happening, I started to tear the leaves into pieces. There’s an idea that suddenly came up to my mind, which is to weave them instead of gluing them to give the tension.
weaving leaf is an interesting process that I completely put my mind into managing the stripes and keeping myself as a medium to connect with the story behind the material.
Definition: design intentions can be poetic in a diary scenario, what kind of memory it brings up when the designer sees this; design can be a hard disk of the designer’s memory; different period of thinking reflects on designs.
the scale of thing how we hold and record things
what changes the form we design
preciousness in design
Project manifesto： To fully experience the magic of materiality within physical life and bridge the notion of the outer and inner self. To define my understanding of furniture design in terms of cultural, emotional, and intentional values. To externalize the interior of self-understanding. I believe there’s a special nourishing relationship between the user and the object but also between the maker and the object itself. I think I’ve achieved this through the summer practice and the interaction with materials is showing me many surprises.
Main methodologies I’ve used this summer are research through making, designing through experiencing, sketching and prototyping.
Two keyframes happening this summer, the first one is the shift of my design intentions, I release myself from the way I used to think design is. Design as a diary can fit into any designer’s work, and take some time to feel the emotional bond within the design.
The other one is to fully experience the magic of materiality and build a nurturing relations as seeing design as a tool to record the experience
The story starts with this design award but does not finish with it.
At the beginning of the summer, I have set a series of goals for myself: be productive, produce more, form my design philosophy, enjoy the summer. I started to organize my mind in a system and have the key elements on paper.
In the first several weeks, my partner and I had a quick discussion on our plans and work separately for the first month, each of us is more into reading and collecting ideas and try to seek some insights from it. As time goes by, the pressure of the submission deadline is approaching, we can feel the time is not enough for us to finish everything as my partner is working on some final paper works for her summer semester in the UK. The time difference between us creates a barrier for us to have flexible time to discuss. Then we call a pause on the try to catching the competition and slow down to have some ideas organized.
As my partner is still busy with her work, I give myself a personal goal on graphic design exercises. At that time, BC is experiencing a high-temperature wave and seeing so many people suffering from the temperature, I want to have a design to record this special time.
It is very pleasing to me to have this exercise since I was trying to figure out the design purpose and design method at this time. Design shouldn’t be limited by the market or the reality of whether we need it or not, design can be a simple reflection of our lives. It is aesthetic precipitation through time, and just like writings, the accumulation of design forms this designer’s styles and philosophies.
The oo incense controller takes us a long period of time to examine the materials on whether it holds the smell or not.
OO incense controllerPalo SantoSome initial sketchesJamie North | Terraforms
Cement, marble waste, limestone, coal ash, organic matter and various Australian plants.
In North’s sculptures, he tried to integrate industry with a natural relationship. His dad’s unique Australian green plants are combined with industrial materials, allowing green plants to grow along with industrial materials. His works simultaneously evoke ideas of progress and collapse, industry and destruction, melancholy and victory. North’s display art re-uses the waste materials generated by human activities, simultaneously with the natural regeneration process. Is a kind of inheritance to nature.
Coffee Shop in Jingdezhen, China
This interior design for a coffee shop in Jingdezhen is using an industrial interior to show the broken elements and have a cold-feeling environment. But there are a lot more details in making an industrial interior feeling comfortable than other styles.
Inspiration
The natural light during the sunset is so warmful and comfortable, but it goes so fast, I can not hold it a bit longer.
