Norfolk & Auburn
Sep. 3 2020
The first things I notice when arriving at the intersection of Norfolk Ave and Auburn Ave at 3:45, are the buildings on each corner. On the Auburn side of the street there is a nail salon, and right next to that, on the Norfolk side, is a deli. The deli has colored lights strung underneath their sign. Opposite of the Nail salon is a building without any name posted on the outside. Grey awnings hang above each door and window on the building, making it seem like a retail store. Across from that building is a fenced off area, covered in overgrown weeds and vines. It is hard to decipher whether it is just a lot or if there is actually a building under the fence and vines.
There are two children on their bikes with their parents passing by. In the distance you can hear the people down Norfolk eating outside, however you can’t make out what they were saying, and the birds are much louder than they are. The intersection very peaceful, since the main noises in the background are the birds. I have no issue crossing the streets as I make my way around the intersection since there are barley any cars. Occasionally, every few minutes or so, there will be the sound of a car turning, or the sound of bike gears getting louder then quieter as they move by.
As I sketch the different corners, I realize that the people or cars don’t stay long enough to get a good look at. Even though not a lot is happening, the movement of people walking or bikes passing doesn’t last long. I then notice the difference between the buildings in intersection and the buildings beyond it. Everything on the four corners is pretty low, however when you look down each street, especially Auburn, there are a lot taller buildings looming over the intersection. This creates quite a contrast, and by just looking at these two streets, you can see the development sprawling out around these shorter, older buildings. Most of the intersection buildings however, seem untouched by any development or modernization.
Outside the nail salon, there are two employees taking a cigarette break, their conversation is very quiet and the birds seem to drown them out. On each corner there are 3–4 planters filled with flowers and little shrubs. Both streets are lined with parking meters, however there are currently only about 7 cars on both blocks. There is also a mail box on the side of the nail salon. Both of these factors makes me think that people don’t spend a lot of time here, it is mostly for parking, going to another destination, and dropping off mail and leaving.
Two different couples walk down Norfolk. Both are walking dogs, one is a golden lab, the other is a black lab. A family then passes and the little girl is shouting “papa.” Her dad is on the other street and joins their family. Seeing these different couples and families makes me think that there are many residential buildings surrounding this intersection. Above the intersection, many different power lines gather in front of the nail salon and spread down far down Norfolk and Auburn.
Sep. 8 2020
When I returned to the intersection at 9:45 am, the first thing I did was listened to see if the sounds changed. Not much had, but I could now hear the cicadas a little more than before. There was also no sound of people eating in the distance since most restaurants were closed at this time. I did hear people walking by and a few cars passing (a lot less than before). There were also more people walking down Norfolk, away from what seems to be apartments, where as before they were walking to the apartments. There was still no one really staying in the intersection, people were mostly walking or driving through it. The intersection, was pretty consistent from the first time I went to the second.
What did evolve my experience this time was how much I noticed the buildings beyond the intersection. When I first went, I was mainly focusing on the details within the intersection itself, however this time, I felt like I could pull back my focus to whats beyond the intersection. I began to notice things like the larger buildings and trees lining the streets. This then became a key feature of the intersection since the buildings down the street emphasized the small low scale nature of the buildings in the intersection. I also got a chance to focus on the construction happening around the intersection. On one side, there was even a crane in the background, which I hadn't seen before.
I found that there were also a lot more trees than I had noticed before. There were still many different potted plants and smaller shrubs on each corner, but I didn't notice how many larger trees lined each street before. This created even more dissonance in the intersection because you have the large modern buildings, the smaller older buildings, and nature surrounding you. You can tell that this area is trying to develop fairly quickly, which is creating a lot of disconnect between the different features of the intersection.
Some key features that are the same as last time are the nail salon on the corner, the awninged building across from that, the Sherman Williams store and parking lot, the parking meters, the stop signs and potted plants, and the deli next to the nail salon. Another is the lot with the overgrown vines and plants that I was confused about my first time at the intersection. This time, I did see that the lot is a development site for yet another residential building, which means the taller, modern buildings are moving closer to the intersection soon.
Sep. 10 2020
When I was cutting out the relief, I noticed the amount of detail that was in the piece, that I wasn’t able to translate into cutout form, like the trees in the back right, the windows on the building and some of the power-lines. Now I think I know more about how to tackle the project, and how to cut out the pieces, which might make capturing the details easier. I think I like this composition right now, but I’m not sure if I like the other ones that I chose.
Sep. 15 2020
I decided to change the composition of my cutouts, and re-do the white relief because I felt that the previous picture was a study on the nail salon and not on the intersection. I also thought it would have been hard to build up into different tones since there is a clear distinction between the foreground mid-ground and background. Because of this, when I chose my new image, I wanted to have a good amount of depth. I had a lot less problems with this image than I did with the previous one, I think that is because the other one had a lot more detail in the specific building, but for this one the detail is spread out through the composition so it made it easier to cut out. I am having trouble though with the posting of the picture it seems to be warped quite a bit.
For the grayscale relief, it was a lot easier to separate the different tones since I did the white one. For it, I focused on distinguishing the different layers and grouping the different objets into those layers. I lost a lot of the different details, but for the ones where I though they were more supportive to the overall composition, I tried to include them. For example in the bottom right hand corner, I included the different highlights on the flower pots. I found that this one was a lot more enjoyable to put together however this one was a lot harder to cut and to shape.
Sep. 17 2020
I had a bit of trouble coming up with the aspects that I wanted to emphasize. I tried out a bunch of different options on illustrator where I grouped similar parts of my intersection, but I felt like none of them highlighted the narrative of the intersection. However, after looking back at my initial observations, I realized that the key feature that stuck out to me was the small, older buildings surrounded by nature competing with the more modern imposing buildings beyond the intersection. I wrote down that it was strange and made the different elements seem out of place. So, I decided to bring color to the two more modern buildings beyond the intersection, and the flower pots in the foreground to show this struggle between the two aspects of the intersection.
My color choice mainly had to do with narrowing down options. I wanted to do something brighter which ruled out the darker card-stock colors. I also didn’t think that green or blue would be adequate representations is showing this struggle between modernization and nature since green is usually associated with nature and blue can be seen as modern glass if used on the buildings. I didn’t want it to seem like the intersection was giving into one of these, nature or modernization, so yellow seemed to be more neutral in comparison.
I wanted to document my approach to the assignment and the techniques that worked for me throughout the different reliefs. For each different layer, I traced the shapes on tracer paper and then taped the paper onto the card-stock to cut it out. I found that it was sometimes difficult to keep the tracer paper taut, but this method worked the best for me. Once all of the different pieces were cut out, I had to place them onto the background. It took me a while to find the best way to do this, I originally just did it by eye, but soon realized that my eye wasn’t as accurate as it could have been. So, I came up with the frame and traced layer so that I could frame the composition to the right dimensions and also place the different pieces corresponding to the traced image.
Sept. 22 — Final Post
To create my final trio of reliefs, I decided to redo each of them so that I could add the feedback given in the last class, and to create more continuity between the three.
What I really thought this assignment did was slow down the process of creating a composition so that I could analyze each step and understand the exigence of the choices I made. When I usually work on a composition, a lot of the decisions are intuitive, or its a quick process to see what worked, but this assignment made me slowly walk through the composition and justify why I picked the composition, tones and colors. I think also having to use more simple shapes put me in a position where I had to prioritize the information that I wanted to share. It overall made me look closer at the process of crafting a composition.
