George Nakashima Woodshop
On January 14th, Victor and I took a day off and drove up to visit Japanese-american furniture designer, George Nakashima’s woodshop. I knew his work through a magazine and wanted to see the environment where his beautiful pieces are made. After seeing his space I am more convinced that a good piece of work comes from a thoughtful environment that is built with time. His work is installed in the reading room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
１月１４日、ビクターと久々にお休みをとってペンシルバニア州にある ジョージ・ナカシマのスタジオを訪問してきました。彼の作品を雑誌で見て以来そ の家具たちがどんな環境で作られているかをこの目で見てみたかったので。実際に行ってみて感じた事は『良い作品は時間とその人の思い入れで築かれた環境か ら生まれる』ということ。彼の作品に触れたい方は現在メトロポリタン美術館のリーディングルームに飾られている（実際に座れます）ので、是非チェックして みて下さい。
George Nakashima Woodshop
Victor Sira: Class Assignments for my 2012 ICP-Bard MFA seminar “The Book”
Victor Sira: Class Assignments for my 2012 ICP-Bard MFA seminar “The Book” For my 2012 seminar on books I made a workbook for my students with a variety of different papers, I will ask the students to finish the workbook not based on visual forms or colors, but by primarily taking in to consideration how we perceive things with our senses…
Book design begins with the bringing together of various kinds of white paper. You need one kind of paper for the frontispieces, another for the cover, another for the inside cover, another for the title page, and so on…
“THE DESIRE TO LEAVE A MARK” AT THE ICP 2012 WINTER CATALOG
COVERS OF MY BOOK “THE DESIRE TO LEAVE A MARK” AT THE ICP 2012 WINTER CATALOG
This January will be my fourth year teaching the seminar “The Book: Imaginary Studio, A Non Stop Process”At the ICP-Bard MFA Advanced Photographic Studies Program in New York City.
What do I teach? I teach the history of the book, construction, editing and design but the ultimate goal of the class is to ask new questions, stimulate conversations and ultimately to communicate with our communities. If you ask someone if they know what a book is? Their answer probably will be yes I know! And that will be the end of the conversation. They are using over and over again the same knowledge they have of the book to answer, but what constantly invigorates the human mind is the unknown; we aren’t animated by what we already know. I want my student to ask questions about the book that has never been asked and then I want them to make books base of these questions.
To converse is to exercise one another’s thoughts by beginning with a trivial piece of knowledge and speaking about it together. I will be happy if this class help my students anew the meaning of knowing as well as understanding, and the essential identity of communication.