Let the Preparation Begin!

The Eco-Friendly Fashion show event will take place earlier this year in order to meet the yearbook photo deadlines. Therefore we have already begun planning for the event. This year, two weeks before winter break, we will taking intensives rather than our regular subject classes. However instead of taking an intensive, I along with the other members of tech crew, shall be teaching one... actually two. The intensives the tech crew will be teaching shall revolve around the Fashion Show event. I will help teach the dress-making intensive and the set designing intensive. The outcome of the dress-making intensive shall be for each girl, or pair of girls to design and create a dress that will be modeled during the show. To show my students (haha kinda weird referring to my peers as students) an example of a dress made out of recycled items, I decided to start working on my dresses a little earlier this year. Today I completed my first dress for this year's event.

My model really wanted a dress that had a vintage vibe and because the event is hosted by the multicultural club, we wanted to incorporate her culture into the dress as well. Therefore we gathered chinese newspapers and I stained each one with a mixture of coffee and a few drops of red food dye. I was inspired by this dress' structure and design: http://data.whicdn.com/images/37551437/417366_327286734033867_1498988909_n_large.jpg

I liked how the torso of the dress was well fitted and the ruffles decorated the skirt of the dress. 

Staining the newspapers and stapling the ruffles on the dress was tedious work, but I was quite content with the outcome. I haven't yet tried it on my model, but as soon as I do I wil be able to add the finishing touches. 

TYWLS of Astoria's Multicultural Night Dance Performances 2012

The Multicultural Night Dance Performances are one of TYWLS of Astoria's most popular events. These performances take place on Multicultural Night, a traditional event that began in 2006 when TYWLS of Astoria was first established. Our first Multicultural Night took place in a small crowded room in P.S 85 while our official school building was being renovated. Already it was easily recognized that our school of 80 students was filled with diverse cultural backgrounds. As the school began to expand, so did the Multicultural Night event. Where once a classroom was a sufficient enough space, an entire block is now dedicated to celebrate the diversity in our growing community. The Multicultural Night Dances was introduced to our school in 2009 as an extension to the Multicultural Night. Students from various grades devote their time to creatively choreograph the culture they choose to represent through dance. As a result of the dancers and MCC's (Multicultural Club) hard work, the audience experience cultural diffusion at first hand. 

This year the dance performances were amazingly successful. Nataly Sanchez, our school's designated camera operator captured the talented performances. Using Nataly's footage, I was able to create a brief video depicting the cultural dances performed. Enjoy :) 

History of Cinema Project --11th Grade

Last year I took History of Cinema as an elective. One of our projects was to create a basic plot for a hypothetical war movie and to create and design a scene for it. I worked with a partner and together we decided on a plot. While I worked on the mini-movie set she wrote a wonderfully written plot overview. This scene is supposed to take place in one of the forests in Vietnam during the Vietnam war. I tried to create forest-like atmosphere in the model by making a few trees out of toothpicks, paint and dried sponges, and designing a small waterfall out of paper-mache, paint, small rocks, and silicon. One of the requirements of the project was to include two of the characters in the set. With this I molded out two figures out of air-dry clay. One of the figures is supposed to represent the protagonist of our "film," a young American soldier, while the other figure is supposed to represent the young Vietnamese villager he falls in love with.  

3rd Annual Eco-Friendly Fashion Show Video

During the summer I have been working on creating the 3rd Annual Eco-Friendly Fashion Show Video. Our theme this year was fantasy, so to create the mood for the set, a few of the Multicultural Club members gathered to write a short story to go with our theme. The narrators of the story are both the President and the Vice President of our club.

The girls at our school worked really hard to produce and model outstanding and creative dresses out of  recycled items to promote a greener lifestyle. We as a club also worked very hard to make the show a success. Thank you to everyone who collaborated in making this event successful!

Please stay tuned for the next video I plan on finishing that displays the "behind the scenes" element of the show. 

MoMa's Summer in the Making Program

                                                               Photo Credit to: Nicole Katav

During the summer I decided to sign up and participate in MoMA's Summer in the Making Program. I participated in their wood shop class: Double Jointed. Throughout the class we explored various forms of wood art including carving, paper-mache and constructing.  We used a variety of different materials throughout the course of the class. We used: cardboard, paper, glue, power drills, hammers, nails, staplers, carving knives, exacto knives, pliers, twine, and different types of wood. The people I met during this program were amazing, especially our teachers: Keith and Natalie who dedicated the time to come up with and guide us with our exciting projects. Each week we working on something new and different. One week we working on making a boat out of found tree branches, another week we went to Tri-Lox (a wood-shop located in Brooklyn) to make go carts, and during another we worked on making paper-mache body forms. 

Our last week at MoMa was dedicated on making our final individual project. At first I had trouble deciding what to work on. I originally wanted to carve out a car from Balsa wood but decided against it. Later I remembered coming across this poster: http://www.forhumanpeoples.com/collections/philip-defranco/products/love-with-guns-poster    and falling in love with it. The image is open to so many interpretations. I proceeded to sketch the image in my book to then begin carving it out the next day in class. (I had to make a few alterations,  the machine gun that was supposed to characterize the letter "e" was too big so I decided carve out an image of a dagger with three bullets. After carving and sanding I used a wood burner to outline the images. 

Opening Night for the Summer 2012 Teen Art Show was amazing. The students in the Double Jointed class and students from the other classes: Click-MoMa, Dumpster Diving, and Crossing the Border were able to present their art and have their art be displayed at MoMa for a little over a month. I was able to mingle with other students from different classes and learn about their experiences at MoMa's In the Making Program. 

Ultimately, this class was truly a fun, innovating, productive and inspiring!

For more pictures of the Summer 2012 Teen Art Show please visit MoMa Teen's facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151130322879600.461508.18789289599&type=3

Game Board Project --8th Grade

 

I was looking through my old flashdrive and found more pictures of projects I've worked on in the previous years. 

Towards the end of the 8th grade, we were assigned to create a game board with a theme of our choice with criteria we learned in that year's science class. I was, and still am a Green Day fan, so naturally I convinced my group to base our theme off of the Simpson's Movie which Green Day guest starred in. I was in charge of the designing the game board and became really excited with the idea. 

When making projects I always have the tendency of using whatever I have available in my home to design the project. So the materials I used for this project was a bit random I suppose. I used tissue paper, foam, popsicle sticks (to ensure the stability of the columns), paper, duct tape, tooth picks, cardboard and Q-tips (for the mic heads). 

I remember I wanted to meet my peer's expectations for this project since they were trusting me to work on the design by myself. During this project one of my group mates, who is also now a close friend of mine, felt a bit uneasy with allowing me to work on the game board design by myself, worried that I'd have trouble meeting the deadline. This taught me to make sure I always give and ask my group mates for updates on the progress we have made in each other's part of the assignment to ensure that our group is organized and on task. 

French Horn--8th Grade

In the 8th grade I was given the assignment to research and create a model of the french horn for music class. I had started off by simply staring at a basic outline of a french horn and drew it over and over again until I understood it's structure. Soon afterwards I began to savage through the materials that I had and decided to create the structure of the french horn using wire, cardboard, paper and tape. Once I had the basic structure for it, I began to paper mache. Unfortunately, once I was done with that whole process I realized that I didn't own gold paint and begun to panic. Once again savaging through my art closet, I finally found gold colored tissue paper I had left over from a previous project and layered the tissue paper along the surface of my paper mache french horn.

I remembered I worked on this project for hours, making a note to myself that I would never procrastinate again, however I also remember being proud of the final outcome and would later take pride in the fact that my music teacher would continue to display it in her classroom for years later. 

I think this project taught me that I must always sketch out a plan or a basic outline for whatever project I need to complete. 

3rd Annual Eco-Friendly Fashion Show --Dresses

I had a very large role in TYWLS 3^rd Eco-Friendly Fashion Show. Aside from organizing the event with our teacher Andrea, and the President and Vice President of the club, I also decided to make three dresses. Originally I planned on making several more, however as the date got closer a few of the models realized that they would not be available for the day of the show. This was a bit relieving for me though, being that I had a lot on my plate.

The first step in making a dress is taking the models’ measurements. I measured each model’s bust, waist, hips, back length and width, and desired dress length. I used these measurements to adjust my mannequin to the correct size and to create the lining for each dress.

Arshia's Dress

                                                      Photo Credit to: Daisy Rojas              Photo Credit to: Daniel Barbosa

I wanted to create a simple yet elegant looking dress for Arshia. Using packaging tissue paper (the white tissue paper that usually comes with your delivery when you order something online) and tissue paper that I saved from Victoria’s Secret, I created a one-shouldered dress cut at the knee. I made sure to line the dress with a plastic bag to prevent the dress from ripping when the model perspires. 

Kinza's Dress

                                                       Photo Credit to: Daisy Rojas                Photo Credit to: Maria Gonzales

Our school receives copies of the New York Times and the old copies are always recycled. I created the lining of the dress first with a black garbage bag. I took a few stacks of newspaper home and began manipulating the newspaper to fit Kinza’s body shape. I started off with the bodice, crumbling the newspaper to add texture and to make it less prone to ripping.  Next I cut several identical sized squares and layered each of them onto the skirt of the dress. After finishing the bodice and skirt of the dress I still felt as though the dress was incomplete. I searched through my art cabinet and remembered the soda can tabs my mom and I collected. I grabbed several silver ones and one red one. I aligned the silver ones on the top of the dress and sewed the red one in the middle.

Christina's Dress

                                                      Photo Credit to: Daisy Rojas              Photo Credit to: Daniel Barbosa

I knew that I wanted to create a Lady-Gaga inspired dress, so I asked one of my closest friends, Christina (who just so happens to be a hard-core Lady Gaga fan) which of Gaga’s dresses was her favorite and she showed me an image of Lady Gaga’s Black Sequined Asymmetrical Dress (she wore this dress often during her Fame Monster Tour).  I told her I would attempt to make it for her to model and she was ecstatic. My English teacher had saved a silver packaging bag made out of bubble wrap (used for packaging food) and asked me if I would like to use it. I was extremely thankful because my original idea was to create the triangle out of cardboard and to layer it with tiny squares of aluminum foil (which would have been tedious work). Using the bubble wrap, I carefully cut out a triangle proportional to Christina’s torso. I then made a heart-shaped bodice out of a black garbage bag and attached the triangle to the left side of the body.  The skirt of the dress was a bit trickier. I attached a regular piece of the garbage bag as the skirt and then focused on the “tutu” part of the skirt.  I measured how much I wanted it to stick out and used this measurement as the radius of the giant circle I was later going to cut in half. I needed the “tutu” part of the skirt to be sturdier, so I layered the circle with a thicker plastic. I cut the circle in half to create each side of the tutu and cut a slot in the middle of each semi-circle to be able to attach it to the dress. After I attached the tutu, I noticed that it still wasn’t as stable as I needed it to be.  I decided to add a little bit of thin cardboard to keep the tutu up.

On the day of the fashion show I helped my models into their dresses and was satisfied with the fact that adding a plastic lining to each of the dresses prevented the dresses from ripping. After helping my models into their dresses I stayed backstage to help adjust the dresses of other models. Double sided tape, rolls of clear tape, scissors, and staplers are the main materials needed backstage for any last minute adjustments. Surprisingly the mood backstage was fairly calm, making the experience more enjoyable. Overall, I had a lot of fun.

Multicultural Dance Performances 2012

Each year to celebrate my school's diversity in ethnic and cultual backgrounds, we hold an annual event known as Multicultural Night. When the Multicultural Club was established in 2009, the Multicultural Dance Performances were introduced to the Multicultural Night event. This year I helped set up the set for the dance performances. We wanted to keep the setting simple, so we decided to hang variety of flags along the balcony and stage of our school's gym. I was also left in charge of filming the dances. The challenge I encountered during this event was to keep a steady hand while filming. The 6:00 show was packed and the tripod was too short to be able to get a good shot of the dances.
Afterwards, I was able to download my footage into iMovie to begin editing what I captured. I kept the video short and simple, selecting a handful of what I thought were the best performances. I would have liked to include them all, however was limited to making a film shorter than 4 minutes. This process required a lot of patience, however in the span of 3 days I was finally able to conclude this project.
Enjoy!