winter quarter
I'm at the second week of winter quarter, and my friends at other grad schools haven't even started back up again. Not to mention that there is a
spring quarter in addition to winter... What do you think, am I a fan of this quarter system or what?
This is supposed to be the really hard quarter - the one you look back at as being the best, but you want to die during. So far, not so bad, but as Matt Kahn says, "The quarter is almost over." And there is much to be done.
Again, three classes ("the trifecta"), and I'm taking chamber music (clarinet quintet!) in addition, instead of lessons. (I had no free units in the cheaper unit pay scale, and was unwilling to take lessons for credit for the next grouping - $3000, or try to do it outside of the university. Plus, I probably don't have time.)
Last quarter was Art60 with Matt Kahn, this quarter it's Art160, with Matt Kahn. John Edmark, a recent graduate of my program, is co-teaching. It is entitled "The Bridge", and should not be mistaken as just an extension of Art60 (Basic Design). Less projects, more time intensive, weightier, and I'll admit, more interesting and harder. The syllabus is similar in that we still have options to choose from, and that there is no order nor deadlines. There are
more projects to choose from, and are grouped in areas such as "Ceremony", "Space", "Sequence", "Illumination". Currently, I'm planning on doing a textile pattern (done, but received somewhat poorly), turning a bowl (in progress - cherry laminate, cereal-sized, hopefully finished this weekend and beautiful), making a container for something, making a stool, and one or two still undecided projects. We also have the treat of 6 lectures by Matt, in addition to our in-class critiques, and so far, they're just great.
Next is Needfinding - a word I believe coined here at Stanford, and as you might imagine, it is about finding needs. Ideally, latent ones. I'm undecided so far - the material I think should be very interesting, but the class itself... It's a nice break, in that we actually have required reading and homework, not design projects, or at least, not yet. So far, Rick Robinson (founder of E-lab, later aquired by Sapient), has cropped up in lecture twice - one of the professors used to work with him at Doblin Group.
Finally, Formgiving. It's the only class we'll have (outside of Thesis, I mean, "Masters Project") that is just us - just the 11 PD grad students in my year. Bill Burnett, a graduate of the program, is our professor, and the class is the only true Industrial Design course of the program. It seems great so far - Bill is engaging, and seems to really be interested in pushing each of us in our own individual way. The first assignment is opposites - we got a list of 8 to choose from, and we had to design and render 3 pairs - I chose Open vs Closed, Sensual vs Sterile, and Random vs Ordered. Crit, and then choose two pairs to prototype in pink foam (Open/Closed, Sensual/Sterile). Those are due tomorrow. I'm impressed with how much a change in teacher can change the way I approach projects: even though I try, I can never truly banish Matt from my head as I design stuff for Art, but with Formgiving, I really think I'm doing this for myself. I think. I think I'll learn a lot from and enjoy the class, but I'm also feeling much better about not going to RISD for ID. Really, that was never for me - what was I thinking?
