5 Mark Makings: The Man vs The Boy

    This time we were given a very broad project of making a mark on or with something…I know very big instructions. There are more to the instructions but that is the gist of it. What I wanted to do though was something to do with my childhood and sticking with loss. The couple different conversations I was: 

1. Being about to create things that I missed out of during my childhood 
2. Imagination vs reality 
3. And commentary about the miss conception of “to become a man you have to kill the boy”

My first project was about demonstrate of a lot these is a larger way. I created with car using cardboard and it was a lot of fun. It looks like something a kid would make and it was fun for me because I have never done it before and it was a really fun experience for me to create this car. I also had the two different sides of the car be different objects to balance imagination vs reality. There is some more I could’ve done looking back like maybe adding rocket boosters and going full kid mode with making it fun and whimsical. 

The second set of objects I made was a pirate ship and mini tree house, these two are separate pieces but similar commentary with putting these objects in the real world to have that contrast of reality vs imagination. The first one that I was working on was a mini pirateship by the turtle pond on campus, I originally wanted to take a photo of the pirateship floating in the water but the fish and turtles kept huddling together watching it and I didn't want to risk them trying to eat it. So the photo I took instead was of the pirate ship looking like it was shipwrecked which coincides with another theme of mine which is a the Man vs Boy. 

After I was done with that portion I wanted to create was a treehouse or a mini one to be specific. Its not super elaborate but it was created to get the point across of making this thing I never got to experience, you see all over pop culture of these kids having these tree houses in there backyard which I barely had a little patio in all the different houses I lived in. Plus on of my favorite book series as a kid was The Magic Tree house and so I wanted to create this experiences that I never had. I feel good about the structure of the piece, I feel like maybe painting to look like the magic tree house then that might read a lot better than just this cardboard box with a a door and a window that reads well because of the context of the tree. I think it could be executed better with more design put into it. 

The next set of two and the final pieces were more of a commentary that leaned on the aspect of Man vs Boy. There is a misconception that for guys that "to become a man" but that is a very toxic mindset. One that actually should be said "You can be The Man when you need to be but you can let The Boy out to play when you need to" which is a lot healthier of a mindset. These two pieces are a distinct reflection of that effect. The first on is a pair of gauntlets and a mask as a super hero would have. The influence would be the TMNT mask for the mask and then the gauntlets a mix of mega man blaster, hulk hands toy, Vi gauntlets, and Bakugo gauntlets. I had them set up the way they are set up as like "hanging up the gloves" which is like giving up on the boy. I think it would've been cool to do a larger helmet but it started to get really complicated so I just stuck with what I knew. 

The final piece I made was a little action figure out of a cardboard to represent all the different Lego's, minifigures, and action figures I had as a kid. It was a fun piece to make with these little folds and all that kind of measurements but I think to improve it would be to make the torso smaller, head a little stubbier, and arms and arms and legs larger with joints to give a little more life plus a nice paint job. I took a photo of it in the trash to think of these objects of leaving in the past (which isn't a good thing). 

Overall this was a very fun experience with creating these objects because I got to create things that I never was able to do as a kid and that was the point of this process. I got "let the boy out to play" and be fun and just do some fun things and relive some childhood wonder which was something that you don't get much of nowadays with being at college. It was one of my favorite projects.