Project 2: Open

Optimism does not always pay off, as it did not in this election. Sometimes being an optimist about the world prevents us from realizing that the worst outcome is still a possibility, and that in order to stop it from happening we need to act. Sometimes keeping your heart closed is the answer. "Hope" is powerless without "action".

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Emily Dickinson

Project 1: Touch

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land.
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
The wetter ground like glass
Reflects a standing gull.

The land may vary more;
But wherever the truth may be---
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look out far.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep?

Robert Frost

The sea touches me in a nostalgic way. It is rare that our feet get to breathe freely, but it is also rare for our mind to wonder among the waves. This work relates not only to the physical contact of the feet with the sand and water, but also the way the way the ocean touches us. The seamless landscape inspires feelings that are radically different from what we experience mundanely.

Introduction

Nature’s first green is gold, 

Her hardest hue to hold. 

Her early leaf’s a flower; 

But only so an hour. 

Then leaf subsides to leaf. 

So Eden sank to grief, 

So dawn goes down to day. 

Nothing gold can stay. 

Robert Frost

As a citizen of multiple countries and an avid traveler, my passion lies in the unknown, where I try to venture. My biggest fear is to wake up one day and realized that I am bored.

I am a senior undergraduate architecture student that has completed a graduate architecture studio, and is also interested in material sciences. I am now in the final semester of my studies at UC Berkeley. Back when I was in Russia, I attended an evening Art School (after regular school) for 4 years. There, I learned to paint with acrylics, watercolors, gouache, learned to draw with plain and coloured pencils, and was educated about art and architecture history. During my years at UC Berkeley, I also took some art classes with the Berkeley Art Studio in oil painting and coloured pencil drawing. I am quite passionate about art and its history, which I always try and incorporate into my work in architecture.