Self Critique

1, Title of your project.
- Basics in Motion
2, Main idea you started with.
- Originally my idea dealt with the imagery of antiquated entertainment (fire) meeting and being interacted with in context of the modern age.
3, Source of the idea and its importance to you
- Once the gears got turning and I figured out that I would be working with a circular device, that utilized persistence of vision, creating a zoetrope was the natural next step. I thought about my childhood and this old night light I had that was powered by heat. I thought about zoetropes in historical context, how they were considered toys for adults. As an adult I find it hard to play with simple toys, like a yoyo for instance, because of the expectations that we set on ourselves. I saw this experience as an opportunity to explore what people consider child's play things and what merits a more in depth look.
4, Key emotion or experience that you want your audience to experience.
- I want my audience to feel free to play and to not be limited by what they perceive as adult like behavior.
5, Theme or premise of the piece
- I want a person to pick up my zoetropes and have that connection to being young and having an interesting toy that is both simple and fun to use.
6, Problem areas, include notes on your own and others suggestions for improvements. What can be done to resolve/improve problem areas.
- One of the biggest problems that these final results have is that they are too small. Honestly they look like mockups for real zoetropes. Persistence of vision is not utilized in the way that I had hoped. A way to resolve these issues would be to make the zoetropes double or triple the size to make them work more effectively.
7, Any additional journal-type notes.
- Frame by frame has left me with an extreme desire to get back to working behind a camera. I guess I took this assignment as a challenge to make something more crafted than my usual works. I love working with my hands but building three dimensional paper objects is not my forte.
8, Exhibition strategy, list specific festivals and venues.
- This project was very crafty. I think that pursuing this as an artistic venture would work best as a model for selling these zoetropes. I feel like there is a very nit-ch market for objects created by hand by small time artists. Once you get the template down and you get a size that works with the zoetrope then these things can be made for a consumer setting. One place that I know would help me distribute these sort of crafts would be Etsy.com. This webpage is all about handcrafted and specialty items. I think that there is potential to create stock and turn a profit with these "toys" that are not made anymore. Another great place to take this sort of thing would be The Frisco Festival in Northwest Arkansas. This festival focuses on one of a kind crafted goods sold by local artists who use the money they raise to tone their craft. Since the opening of the Crystal Bridges, the local art museum, Northwest Arkansas has become quite a center for arts and people who want to be recognized as artist.