James Rouse MFA Applied Craft + Design Practicum 2015
Couch Forts
This project draws upon a childlike sense of exploration and discovery. Through a recombinant process of using materials at-hand to build inhabitable objects, I attempt to create poetic experiences that feel equally – and simultaneously – of the past, present, and future. My joyful (mis)use of readily available, ubiquitous materials in an immediate, assemblage method of making is intended to inspire playful and aspirational approaches to creative potentialities, sustaining a sense of discovery. In the words of D.W. Winnicott, “It is in playing and only in playing that the individual child or adult is able to be creative and to use the whole personality, and it is only in being creative that the individual discovers the self.”
16' x 3' x 3'
Pallets, wheelbarrow, metal, aluminum ducking, casters, and paint.
This is the interior of the sculpture. It can be accessed through a door in the front of the piece. Initially this sculpture was design for children, but adults also interacted with it.
The white stag mythologies is a metaphor in multiple cultures for the power of nature. In the case of the Rocket it is about accessing an primal conciseness relating to the energy of play.
This was the first iteration of the CouchFort project. A couch was transformed into an inhabitable object. It is mobile and attaches to the wall with rope.
12' x 4' x 8'
metal, barn plywood, couch, plexiglass, casters, pool table parts, and paint.
The door has two brass plates with an image of a crab on one and a butterfly on the other. These are two symbols relating to the concept of Festina Lente- to make haste slowly. In the case, this represents a life time of experiences that guides your way
This is the second iteration of the CouchFort project.
20' x 8' x 5'
couch, metal, wood, tent, wax, paint, flocking, latter, and mattress
This is also an accessible sculpture or an imagination habitat or a pet for architecture.
I sewed tent fabric into metal leaf patterns on the lower part of the couch fort.
detail
CouchFort#2 is also an inhabitable object. This is an interior image of the CouchFort.
