Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Making Things Beautiful part 1




Since my yayang is now a staple peddler at Amcorp Mall Flea Market selling his toys and custom paint works, I am left alone every Sunday, from sunrise til sunset.

Having the house all to myself, I decided to make myself useful. So this is what I did last weekend to a particular wall in our apartment. Years of collecting frames from various places with no idea what to do with them, I finally put them to good use.

I just realised that I usually buy 3 or 4 of the same frames, I don't know why. But in this case the four sides of the main frame in the middle gave me an idea on how to arrange them. I didn't want the arrangement to be static and boring. I want it to look random but with a system to it. Inspired by the Fibonacci sequence and the spiral motion of a sun dial, I arranged each of the 4 frames on each side, to avoid repetitive elements within adjacent spaces. Its a clockwise movement so the frames turn a 90 degree turn on each side to give an interesting visual variety even though they are the same design.

I love working with squares and rectangles, it poses a lot of structural possibilities. I'm quite obsessive with four sided shapes. It took awhile to align the sides so all the frames actually lie on a grid. I also have to consider the colour of the frames which I originally wanted to paint all in black, but against the creamish wall, the gold accents and the natural wood colour looked good. The gold also mirrors my other sun mirror on the grey lavender feature wall behind the TV and the curtains (nt shown here).The overly decorated frames are played down by its almost analogous simultaneous contrast with the background. And too much black would just add a sombre mood and I wouldn't want that in my home.

Using plastic hooks with adhesive tape I got from Tesco and Giant, I arranged the hooks beforehand. It was quite tricky and I screwed up some of the parts, especially the lower part, The white frame is too much to the right, both the black frames are too low.

I had to wait 12 hours for the hooks to set but I was impatient so I put it all up within 9 hours.

TADAAAAAAA!!!!!!! It was meant to be a modular system in which I could add in more frames in the future. Its actually like a BIG MINDMAP, I intend to fill the frames not just with photos but also illustrations, typo and pattern. My Yayang and I are gonna build our memories into the frames and replace the illustrations with our future adventures. So it will fill up slowly and grow more and more. It also acts as our Vision Poster of our hopes and dreams of how we wish our life to be. If we ever move house, the wall moves and grows with us.

Sigh... I enjoyed this project a lot, that's why I want to share it with you guys. I have an affinity to make beautiful things and making things beautiful. So the next time my husband goes off to Amcorp to sell his projects, I'll be working on my own projects... hehehe...

AMOK


I lost my temper in class the other day. I really lost it. Was so angry, my entire body felt so hot and I shook uncontrollably. I had to leave the class before a student gets injured.

I regretted it. Remembering what happened, I still feel my anger building up. My eyes feel hot and watery again, I could scream.

It wasn't just anger. It was a combination of anger, frustration and disappointment. Of the highest kind. I still don't know how to handle that feeling.

I love design and and even more, I love teaching design. Especially this semester, when I got to teach all my favourite subjects.

But it KILLS ME. Literally KILLS ME, when students don't show up, even more, when they don't even show the slightest interest in design. I share as much of what I've learned and experienced, preparing my own notes that have been simplified to the bare minimum in order to help my students understand or at least inspire them to learn and want to know more about design.

I don't get it. I seriously don't get it. How can they be so indifferent? So disinterested?

I'm sad to see such level of loathsome. I'm angry to see such profound laziness. I'm disappointed that i don't get to see even a slightest bit of PASSION, of ENTHUSIASM or even of INTEREST in the students. It saddens me and it kills me.

I wish I could teach students who really want to learn, who really want to be here. Students who genuinely believe that an education in design will somehow be of some value to them.

Its frustrating and downright depressing. And they ruin the industry. Just because they don't care. Maybe I'll just sell keropok lekor. On an island. In Terengganu.