Hudson's Portfoilo

I created this self portrait over many art sessions in the frigid British winter. My comment on boarding are the dark bags under my eyes. My expression is serious, as I am in school. My eyes are wide, meaning that I am trying hard to be open to new expirences.

Here, my portrait takes on the happiness that I find in working with my hands. I can accentuate the arch of my smile, my teeth, my lopsided eyes. Colour too, is a way to enhance the joy and expression with multiple images each feeling slightly different. Making art this physically inspired a love of the material and for me, became a bridge between traditional art and woodworking/craft/DT.

Making A Desk

It all started at the beginning of the term, I rushed in to see if the workshop was open, which it was, and proposed my idea to master craftsman. He warned me, just like he does to anyone else that it would not be easy and take an especially long time. I readily accepted the challenge! It would be a commitment of all my Thursday afternoons: a highly productive time.

The first few hours were spent in deep thought about the design of the pull-out keyboard tray. The next of my Thursdays were spent at a standstill, thinking about what a prep schoolboy thinks about, the nights prep, what is going to be for dinner, and which teacher is patrolling the dorms tonight. Until, one day, I finally got to the front of the line where we could build in peace without any distractions.

The building phase started by measuring the size and type of wood, and tools needed for the job, but then quickly progressed to actually cutting, trimming, sanding, and driving (the proper word for screwing). All of these processes combined with my time (approximately two terms) made a fully-functioning computer desk with a pull-out keyboard tray.

Although this was not a burden, it was for fun and use, I felt a huge weight being lifted off of my lower back after finishing this project. This feeling was probably due to the fact that I didn’t have to lean down to use the insanely small table anymore.

This piece was inspired by the open landscape of New Mexico and having a desert to play in. The fun of building a catapult became surprisingly mathematical.

As part of the process, we estimated the distance a 1 kg object should fly using our 80kg catapult.

We first calculated how much gravitational energy is transferred into kinetic by dropping 80kg of weight.

Using the fact that Kinetic Energy equals 1/2 x mv^2 we calculated the velocity of the projectile.

Using Pythagoras, we calculated the horizontal velocity and vertical velocity of the projectile and treated them separately.

Using the equations of constant acceleration (SUVAT), we calculated the time it should take for the projectile to rise and fall back to earth.

Using this time and multiplying it by the horizontal speed we calculated the range of the trebuchet, which, if we ignore the effects of air resistance, should be a little over 100m if we use 80kg of mass launching a 1kg projectile.

After building the catapult, we were hopeful to launch a 1 lt water bottle across the desert valley. Unfortunately, the bottle only traveled 7 meters.

Failure, it turns out, is part of any artist’s process.

“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
― Thomas A. Edison

Well before the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776 and America was even a country, the Spanish colonists were in New Mexico and Spain was a mighty imperial power in North America. Spanish and Mexican families founded the San Francisco de Assisi Mission in Taos, Northern New Mexico. Starting in 1772, the Franciscans supervised the building of this adobe (mud brick) structure which is now a National Historic Landmark and a United Nations World Heritage Site.

Built of mud and hay, the walls curve and pick up the sun in drastically different ways. Many artists including Georgia O'Keffe (see left - Ranchos Church, NM, 1929) and Ansel Adams (St. Francis Church, Taos Pueblo, 1964) have used it as a subject and I can see why. I enjoyed the use of light and even went further to show the sun shining on one of it’s back walls. Because it is the desert, I added a cactus and a few birds even though cacti don’t really grow around there. It’s just what people expect to see, so I had fun exaggerating that.

If I am ever in New Mexico at the right time, I intend to go to an “enjaere.” This happens annually and it’s when everyone from the community comes together to re-mud the mud plaster walls.

An Ode to New York

I

At

The top

The top of the sky,

Encased in clean glass,

Serene as I drop gracefully,

In an elevator worked by an elevator man,

In the middle, the world comes into focus,

The cars from centimetres to metres in size,

Nearing the bottom, the city grows in decibels,

The bags with people and the leashes with dogs,

The taxis which are honking, until they run out of air,

And the sounds of the city become apparent through the:

Glass Doors

Glass Doors

Glass Doors

Dans mon image de vagues, j’ai pris inspiration de Paul Cézanne.

Ces trois peintures que j’ai regardé sont : Le Chateau à Mèdan et deux versions de Mont Sainte Victoire.

L’inspiration que la peinture ‘Le Chateau à Médan’ m’a donné, est celle de la repetition. Dans l’image il y a plusieurs reflections de maisons et des arbres. Cela est le même dans mon image avec les vagues.

La deuxième inspiration que j’ai pris est ce du Mont Sainte Victoire. Dans cette peinture il n’y a pas de mouvement, et c’est un paysage. Cela est le même pour la mienne, sauf il y a un peut de mouvement dans mes vagues.

La derniere inspiration que j’ai pris de Cézanne est qu’il a utilisé des traits indistinctes. Cela est ce que j’ai fais pour mon image pour les arbres après les vagues.

When we were sailing in Indonesia, we visited a small bay called Were on the northeast coast of Flores Island. They have a long tradition of wood boat building. Most of the men that live in the village can be found around the long wooden fishing boats that they are building. The most interesting thing about the boats is that they don’t even use nails! All of the pieces fit together and they don’t have to use any metal. To plug up the holes, they use wood shavings.

When we left the boats, I saw many children playing in the water. They were sailing their own homemade boats and I was intrigued. I wanted to figure out how to build one for myself. I collected bamboo because it is strong and driftwood because it is light, used an old plastic bag for the sail and did a lot of calculations with my tutor. By taking pictures and later using these pictures to estimate measurements we were able to create our own design for our own boat.

We first whittled down the hull pieces and cut them to equal lengths using handsaws.

We measured out the booms and used them to make an outline for the sail.

After cutting out the sail from a larger plastic bag, we made regular holes along each edge so it could be tied to the booms.

Once the booms and sails were assembled, they were fixed somewhat freely to the mast, which was then fixed to a third, lightweight hull that was bound to two spars crossing the two hulls. I did this all using fishing line.

A month later, in our first 'sea trials' in a marina in Bali, the boat could sail, but unfortunately due to the fact the wood was infested with some sort of burrowing insect, it was thrown out by the captain to preserve the integrity of the wooden decking.

My nautical surroundings on MerSea inspired both the medium and the landscape of this watercolour painting. Beach and Boulders represents my love of the seashore. There is nothing better than paddle-boarding to shore, collecting seashells, and then finding oysters on the boulders for a mid-adventure snack.

With a freshly broken remote controlled car, I decided that I would have to make use of the parts which I had. Since I was getting ready to go on a boat trip, I thought that it would be a good idea to make a working model. Over the next two terms, many challenges presented themselves, such as the rudder mechanism and trying to make sure that the boat was waterproof.

To do this, I used a plastic sheet for the deck to protect the fragile inner components that I used from the car - the motor, the circuit board, the battery and the receiver. I carved a Styrofoam block in the shape of a hull, put a heated plastic sheet over that, and then removed the Styrofoam.

Even though I chose waterproof materials for the body, the challenge was the seams. After experimentation, I put rubber seals along the sides to make sure that no splashing water could penetrate it. This process took over two terms, but it was all worth it when my name was announced for winning the Cothill House Design Award.

When I was eight, my roommate at camp was a Japanese boy who made paper cranes at night. He taught me the folds and from there, my passion for origami grew.

Over the years, I perfected the art of crane making and then progressed to making mobiles decorated with precious gems. The best thing about crane making is that you can do it anywhere and they make great gifts for family and friends.

Since everyone loved them so much, I started a small business selling crane chains and Christmas ornaments at the Christ Church Cathedral Christmas Market and donated 50 percent of my sales back to the school’s art program.

Since that first experience at sleep away camp, I have made over 1,000 paper cranes which according to Japanese tradition, is called Senbazuru. Folding 1,000 cranes makes one special wish come true.

The bintangophone is a new instrument made aboard MerSea from used Bintang beer bottles (the local beer) filled with varying amounts of water.

These bottles can be played in two different ways: being struck with a beater like a glockenspiel, or blowing across the top like a wind instrument.

We first used a guitar tuner to add the correct amount of water to several bottles and plotted a graph of frequency against water height.

We then used the line of best fit from this graph to predict the water height for other notes in between (which saved a lot of time as opposed to tuning it manually, drop by drop).

Afterwards, we had a full chromatic scale over two octaves (24 beer bottles in total), each with the water level and pitch marked.

We could vary our choice of notes, and I think the most successful sounding choice was that of the Balinese slendro scale which has a very distinct quality.

Much trickier than making it was learning to produce a consistent note when blowing across the bottles, but that's another story altogether.

The Whirling Dervishes are representative of old Istanbul, the place where my father grew up. I lived in Turkey for five years and visit often. It is a part of me. The modern link here is my use of recent Turkish newspapers to show that although we are always spinning and moving from country to country, we are still rooted in one place.