Some projects for my MFA have been kind of fun. Here are my favorites!
The illustration above is something I created from the prompt, A Coney Island of the Mind. This assignment really gave our MFA Coordinator, Steven Brower, a hardy chuckle when I presented it. I guess I can see why. It is a wild juxtaposition. The laughing, smiling people, all in the same outfits, enjoying the ride while the world is on fire beneath them, and one poor soul holding on for dear life. I was trying to make a statement about anxiety and depression. I wanted to convey how it can feel extremely jarring and isolating when one is in a mental health crisis, or in the midst of sadness and grief, yet the rest of the world just keeps on moving.
The illustration with the man hooked into the scary machine and staring at a skull screen is something I illustrated and designed from the prompt, To Sleep Perchance to Dream. This comes from the To Be or Not To Be soliloquy in the Shakespeare play, Hamlet. I was partly inspired by various posters for performances of Hamlet over the years, but also took inspiration from a book of graphics and visual propaganda from the Soviet space program. See the wires forming the crown on the screen, and the man dreaming about his own death. If this isn’t the coolest thing I’ve ever made, it’s pretty close. I really love it.
For this prompt we were left to our own devices to come up with something that would challenge and excite us. I wanted to play with package design so I decided to design and build my own matchbooks. I created a fictitious restaurant, backstory, and famous specialty menu item to really sell it. Even I want to know what a snapper dog looks and tastes like.
It was a little tedious to take apart existing matchbooks. It was also a bit challenging to cut the adhesive strike paper to the specific size and shape of the matchbooks. But the hardest part was designing a template that would allow me to print the front and back of the matchbooks and have it be aligned. It took a lot of tries, but it was fun to hand out matchbooks at our summer critique.
Hope you’ve enjoyed this brief glimpse into some of my MFA work. Looking forward to sharing more soon!