Lantern Project

For this project, I wanted to create something that I could give to my Mother. When asked to come up with the four images that would make up the sides of the lantern, I decided to keep it simple and draw graphic shapes that represented my Mother’s life style and interests. I chose the deer antler because she is from the Adirondack Mountains where she was brought up as a very forest savvy and survival minded hunter. I chose the maple leaf because she grew up with a sugar shack where her and her siblings would tap trees and make maple syrup. The harmonica because my mother plays the harmonica and the daisies because her favorite flower is the Adirondack daisy. I enjoyed the guidelines that required us to work with illustrator and the templates. As an artist who tends to work very meticulously and detail oriented, I also recognize that sometimes less is more and my brain also enjoys the occasional opportunity to work more symbolically and minimal. I would say that the only thing that hurt my creative process was the amount of time and energy that was put into the Arduino and LED’s. For me personally and speaking honestly, I am not fond of the blinking lights as an aesthetic or creative choice. It’s not something that I find to be aesthetically pleasing and since so much time was dedicated to all of the many steps that went into making the Arduino work, much less time was spent on the actual art and designs of the lanterns themselves. I do think I would have designed my lantern differently if more of my time and attention could have been put into that aspect of the assignment.

How did your process reflect (or not) design thinking?
ASK – I had to ASK myself what kind of theme or imagery did I want to use to incorporate into the design of my lantern. I immediately thought of my Mother as her being a source of light in my life!
IMAGINE – I had to imagine what kinds of shapes and lines would work as a laser cut. I had originally planned to create more detailed drawings in illustrator but when I started trying to envision how that would translate as negative space cut out of wood, I realized that I’d rather save myself the headache and create some simple and clean silhouettes instead. Imagining and being able to think ahead was very important during this design process.
BUILD – I then had to BUILD the lantern and bring all of the components of the wooden sides and the Arduino together.
EVALUATE – I had to EVALUATE every step of the Arduino process over and over. There were so many steps involved and it was very easy for any little thing to be missed or to go wrong. My brain felt very numb to the technicality of it all. Having to continuously evaluate and revise each step along the way, while slowly inching closer and closer to a successful end result felt exhausting. Every creative design process involves this kind of dance with the project where the artist is continuously evaluating and revising but I think it depends on the artist’s personal vision and sense of passion attached to the particular assignment, that determines wether the struggle felt more rewarding or frustrating in the end.
SHARE – Then of course the SHARING aspect of any assignment, wether it’s through class critique, blogposts or even working amongst others and watching the other projects evolve along side yours is always rewarding and an important part of the design experience.

What did you learn? Describe your learning process.
I learned how laser cutting works! I enjoyed the experience of planning and designing something intended for a material that I haven’t worked as much with, like wood. During my wood cutting appointment, I was excited to watch how it all worked and it got me day dreaming about how I might be more open to exploring working with wood on personal projects in the future. I also learned that it is possible for something to feel harder the second time! For some reason, the steps that it took to get the LED’s to work felt much harder than it did on the last assignment. Probably because there were more challenges and steps within the process this time around.

What was most challenging? What was most fun?
The absolute most challenging part of the assignment was the….*drumroll*… Arduino! The most fun was planning the art work for the lantern and watching the laser cut process.

How did this activity connect (or not) to your prior knowledge of art and art education?
I’ve worked with illustrator in the past but it’s been a few years. I mainly work with Photoshop so tweaking and editing on PSCS6 was a breeze but I believe the last time I used illustrator, it was CS4, so I was happy for an excuse to play with the program in CS6. I forgot how satisfying it feels to draw in vector (Ahhhh, the sweet simplicity of infinitely smooth lines!)

How might you use and/or adapt this activity in an art classroom?
I would simplify the lighting aspect of the assignment and have students put more focus into their art and the overall visual development of the lantern. I would create a presentation that looks into the history of lanterns and lighting design and I would like to focus on inspiring them to think conceptually and outside of the box when it comes to what they can dream up as a possibility for the art of their lanterns.  Of course planning and building the lighting is an important aspect of the lantern assignment but it feels more like it should be “the cherry on top” and not the majority of the time and focus for the assignment. For time’s sake, I wouldn’t want the Arduino process to compromise the focus that student’s give towards the artful approach of designing their lanterns – I think I might even skip the Arduino all together and with younger children, I would incorporate tea lights instead.