Final Project: Makerocosm

Anthropocene Identity Concept Art

Makerocosm is an artifact from the early 21st century that has been destroyed by fire, water, earth, and wind and attempted restoration in five frames.  It was originally conceived as a way to share stories that have moral or ethical implications.

You’re told to enter the first frame of Makerocosm with the literal word “Enter”, as if melted from your very keyboard, the wellspring of literary invention. As your eyes leave the frame and travel to the next, you become a witness to the world most wrecked, as glimpsed through the lens of the future. The eyeless man’s gaze exerts control, even as his ruined mouth shouts a warning, how the mighty creations of man are nothing in response to a waiting universe. The goddess reaches out her many arms to cradle what’s left of civilization, and we reach to her, to hope, as we realize that hope -- and redemption -- wait as a redemptive force for those who would simply take her hand.

I work using thrifted materials that are then put through an exhaustive process of additive and subtractive practices. This decontextualization and reconstruction of materials is meant to inspire those who see the work to discover beauty in unusual places, and my artistic process itself is an survey of a material, its curves and edges and details, with intentional exploration guiding the process rather than the preconception. The deterioration of the artifact creates a tension between how the piece was originally conceived and how it is presented now.

I choose to celebrate beauty and the eccentric, focusing on small-scale, up-cycled items that have been battered by humans and time.  So how did this artifact survive?

I used sandpaper to create thinning and tears in the fabric that would occur during the “Earthquake of 2078”. I added plastic bags and fused them with a heat gun to represent the rubble and aftermath. I exposed the work to nitric acid and bleach during an unknown time of chemical warfare. I have immolated the piece with fire, drowned it in water, and buried it no less than three times before its discovery by Joseph Polliester in 3017.

3.2 Securing

dyed linen with USB, bobby pins, wooden dowel, Scrabble piece, and plastic sandwich bag secured through weaving, couching, encasing, pinning, and stapling

3.1 Adhering 

reusable grocery bag with ribbon, makeup cap, pearl button, bobby pin, and plastic snack bag, attached with spray adhesive, hot glue, and gloss medium

Dyeing Studies 2.3

cross stitch on linen using additive and subtractive methods 

additive methods: ink, acrylic paint, crayon, tumeric

subtractive methods: sandpaper, bleach, bleach in acrylic paint, salt

Dyeing Studies 2.2

lazy daisy stitch on sequined synthetic using subtractive methods

bleach, scissors, sand paper, and nitric acid 

Dyeing Studies 2.1 

blanket stitch on linen using additive methods

green tea, turmeric, and wax crayon