"The Daydreamer"
A fully functional, custom guitar celebrating the magic of imagination and the never-ending pursuit of conceptuality.
Behind the Daydreamer
“I’ll get to that later.” A phrase I would always repeat to myself every time I glanced at our family owned guitar in the corner of the living room. Even now it sits enclosed, alone in a desolate case that hasn’t seen an ounce of sunlight in years, often hardly even earning a glance from the members within our household. And so, naturally, when the opportunity to take this course arrived, I saw it as a sign. Despite me currently not knowing how to play (effectively anyway), I thought to myself this: “What better way to learn than by learning how it’s made?” I quickly found myself brainstorming. What one may deem just a wooden block, I considered a canvas waiting to be utilized. From the start, I had a clear idea of what I wanted to hand paint. Rather than a literal depiction of an object or concept in terms of shape, more than anything I knew it was important to start off with a silhouette that well conveys movement, expression, and individuality. I ended up designing a shape vaguely reminiscent of an anchor, and was really looking forward to starting painting— the main caveat being I’d have to work through all of the woodworking processes first.
Initially, I was terrified of the band-saw, its piercing noises would flood my ears, and I could feel its (figurative, don’t fret) eyes stare at me from across the room. Oddly enough, what ended up easing most of my nerves was making my first mistake when cutting. While salvageable, my guitar body’s design needed to be tweaked. While still close to my initial vision, the deviation made me look at it differently, ultimately in a good way. At that moment, my illustrative concept changed. Unbeknownst to me, this was a trend that would increasingly continue throughout the building process (the changing of composition, not lobbing off extra parts of my guitar, luckily).
To an extent, each new design in my head was a reflection of how I felt; both in the moment doing whichever process as well as my general state of being. For instance, whenever I was sanding my guitar down through the belt sander, spindle sander, and even hand sander, there was a sense of serenity. Despite it being new and unfamiliar, I was able to get a feel for their usage, fueling my creative process in turn. I envisioned a figure diving into a pool of water, with colors absorbing into them, and the universe itself trailing behind. A very different visual image from my first concept of a human ear growing from the ground, and it producing music to be harvested by a floating humanoid figure with a polygonal head amidst a cubist landscape. Normal passing thoughts like that.
You may ask, “That’s cool and all, but how does any of that connect towards the design I see in front of me?” To put it simply, dreams. In the literal sense, there’s a man standing on humanoid mountain entities while getting abducted by the sun. But it’s more than just that. My concept is searching for conceptuality, but also reaching towards something unknown yet familiar. Getting lost in thoughts but also better finding yourself through them. Turning those passing thoughts and ideas into action. Rather than a typical landscape, I aimed to define my personal concept of a “mindscape.” Starting by applying a white matte primer through spray painting for the first time, I grabbed my acrylics, what’s left of my mind, and began to try and tell a story through color. In terms of finish, while largely using normal acrylics, I also implemented flecks of golden metallic paint, as well as pencil markings. To me, a sketch is one of the purest physical depictions of thought. And so, while partly used as a visual transition from the paint to the process, the sketched lines and patterns also serve to reinforce the idea of creating art. While many of these feelings and thoughts are universal, especially so amidst fellow artists, I knew that I wanted a simultaneously authentic personal tie to the work. As I mainly work digitally, my art style tends to shift to an extent between mediums. For this piece though, I tried to represent my stylization in its purest form, almost acting as if it was a screen. Seriously. At one point I double tapped the wood trying to hit undo (it didn’t work). Despite being a multi-hour long endeavor, being able to actively see what’s in your mind actively take form made it my overall favorite part of the building process. Now, strung and tuned, my finished guitar rests in front of you. The Daydreamer. I look at it and am reminded of my time in class this semester, but also all the thoughts that ran, and still run, through my head. An opaque mirror. Creative or exhausted, optimistic or uncertain, regardless of the myriad of emotions and memories, they’re all parts of myself. Soon it won’t be here on display, but with me. While I have not yet learned how to play the guitar, I don’t intend to leave my dreams to collect dust in a corner. I’ll get to that now.
"A Sacrifice"
Developed using metal, wood, and clay, this mixed media piece explores themes of body horror and being overtaken by elements out of your control. Initially being three individual sculptures per each respective medium, I designed each with the other in mind, the first of which was the head. Created initially from a live model with the goal of being a 1:1 facial recreation, once proportions were set, I began altering my own work and using the base as its own canvas. Even still, creating visual cohesion and a sense of motion was a continual effort that I mediated through color and visual repetition. Once all the parts were welded, screwed, and glued together (apart from the ever so detachable head), I taped around the parts intended only to have a cherry wood stain applied, and sprayed the entire structure with a base coat. Afterwards, the rest of the palette came to form through hand-painting, color changing spray paint, and wood stain.
