INTERIM CRITIQUE: A BOX FOR TWELVE TWIGS 9/17/08

Today we divided into three groups and critiqued our interims for our box for twelve twigs project.  In Tommy's group, we kept going back to three main points as each project was analyzed: stay focused on one idea, strategic thinking, and defining quality.  The majority of the models played with several ideas - contrasting, resembling something literal, working as a system, emphasizing.  We discussed how every idea was great but that we needed to decide which one works the best for our project and our twelve twigs and to focus in on that one strong idea by eliminating the others.  Along with the topic of a focus, this critique showed us that by moving our projects around in different positions can make huge differences in the overall project.  We need to think strategically to make sure the twigs are visible, that our eyes don't get lost between the twigs and the structure around them, to relate the space to the container - rather by contrasting or making similar.  Tommy convinced us that the only way to make our strategic thinking work is to test every idea and make way more thinks than we need to.  We were also reminded over and over again to never apologize for your project and to not criticize your work too much.  During this critique, we also talked about defining quality; when you've found a precedent, use a precedent, or are looking for a precedent, don't think about what you want your project to resemble or how you're going to make your project look like your precedent.  Instead think about what it is about your precedent that works and how that could work for your project.  The class discussion at the end brought up other issues such as scale and how everything relates to each other, visualization, and craftsmanship.