According to Keene State College sophomore Charlotte Planeta, students were instructed “to take something that was a smaller scale, an everyday item, then blow it up into a [much] bigger item” in Professor Miles Warner’s foundations of design class. Just using cardboard for this project, Planeta and her group made a giant pencil.
Students got help from Warner to decide a good object to largely recreate and the groups determined what could be made out of cardboard and what might be too complicated. Planeta explained that she was in a group of four and they each worked on a different part of the pencil.
“We had to keep redoing them to make sure they were perfect. I was in charge of carving the [brand name] Ticonderoga into the pencil and I re-did that so many times,” Planeta said. The group also struggled with the scale of the eraser, but together they were able to figure it out.
Another group produced a huge Wii remote and group member Bradley Valalik, a senior, described their object choice as “unmistakable” and “nostalgic.” Working on this project for four to five weeks, Valalik went on to say the project “took a lot of time and even extra hours outside of the classroom.”
His group’s most difficult obstacle for this project was curving the cardboard in two ways. “When it’s corrugated [the cardboard] only wants to bend with the grain, so the bottom of the remote and the edges really took patience and a lot of trial and error,” said Valalik.
Warner showed his excitement toward this project, saying that the “work [was] worthy of being shown off.” The class’s work was first showcased in the Carroll House Gallery and is currently in the Thorne Gallery entrance.
“The cardboard upscale project is challenging in its own way,” Warner said, comparing this work to other projects from this spring semester. The class must understand three-dimensional design, detail, and measurement. Warner said that each one of his classes are different and he has found that “the fun is always in the detail.”
Planeta was impressed with her group’s work and thought the final piece was “realistic next to the pencil [they] based it off of.”
Valalik said, “[The cardboard art project] challenges your creative thinking and takes you on a different path rather than your normal college experience with tests and books.”
Planeta said, “[Warner’s class] was really fun, and I would recommend the class to anyone looking for an art credit.”
Denise Ronan can be contacted at dronan@kscequinox.com
