MANIFEST DENSITY
Found object + 3 materials
(trowel, craft sticks, muslin, glue)
As an exploration of different approaches to adaptive reuse, the assignment was to take a found object and make an intervention, using no more than three materials, that responded to something in the original object.
The goal, for me, was to see the original object differently, for the two pieces to be more together than they had been apart.
Trowel
After selecting my found object, I carefully documented it. Drawing lets you see details you’d otherwise miss and the story of this battered tool was visible in its imperfections.
Box
I wanted to highlight the traits of the trowel by adding its opposite. Elevating this mundane object to the status of something precious by making it a jewelry box. The teeth look just like a dovetail joint in wood working. But my nice wood was warped, so I had to rethink and pivot.
Pleats
Going back to my roots in costume design, the teeth also reminded me of box pleats. I sketched different stitching ideas and played with a scrap of muslin and different pleats - all were too busy, but let me see the possibilities in the play of light and shadow.
After looking at all the photos again, I realized what I was really interested in was the shadow. Why not build it one? Rather than mundane and precious, heavy and light, earthly and ephemeral…
Literally making the density manifest.
To catch a Shadow…
This lighting study got me thinking about how this heavy trowel always had a lightness attached.
Extra fabric trails and stretches behind the assembly, fluid in its shape as shadows are.
The sticks and fabric had to be fit to each unique tooth.
The shadows are always trapped beneath the trowel, no matter the lighting angle.
In response to the angles of different teeth, not every stick is perfectly vertical.
A study in contrasts: dirty/clean, heavy/light, old/new, and straight/bent. By combining these materials the differences are highlighted, making something very different than the original trowel.
Imperfections become interesting and even beautiful.
