College Life: Welding UPDATE.

2:50:00 AM

This project was so fun to make. It's a bit different than from what I was first imagining but I'm really happy with how it came out.

So, I decided on a using a fish as the base model of my form because in Japanese and other Asian cultures, the fish is a symbolism of courage and persistence because they swim upstream and it's the embodiment of what I want to be. In that idea, I wanted to make my form sort of metamorphic, where the form can evolve and metamorphose into a number of different forms.

This is the origami fish I used to plan out my "map"

Yep....

Tried to make a wire version to see if my idea would work and it would all fit together.

So I went to class and I spent so much time trying to plan out my idea that I wasn't really getting anywhere. So my professor cam over and was like, "you know, you might get where you want to be a lot faster if you just start welding and seeing what works and what doesn't." She was right.

So, I welded a few parts and tried binding them together. And lo and behold, they didn't really fit...

But I also found out that my idea to bind all of my parts together worked really well and was exactly what I wanted it to be.

And so, with that information, I knew I needed to make really precise measurements and pieces in order for my piece to work and fit together really well. So I made a new map.

...and recorded and calculated all my measurements so that I can cut and grind all the pieces I need to weld together.

So in order to make my pieces really precise I needed to cut everything about 1/4 of an inch more than I need and then grind everything down to the right length.

First half of welded parts..

Bound form.

And trying to see how I could move and shape the form.

Folded form.

This is when I just finished binding the entire form at like 4 in the morning.

Folded full form.

So, there's a subtle difference between this photo and the title photo above. If you look at the lines of the map on the ground, they're much more structured and cleaner looking than the lines in this picture.

I wanted to figure out a way to express the mutability of the form and show the original form and where it came from. The idea is that you could theoretically fold and unfold the form into whatever shape and development of itself that you'd like as a way of saying that everyone is sort of at different parts of their own swim upstrwam, they might not be completely where they want to be yet, but they're still on their way to being the courageous fish they want to be...... hahahaha but seriously.