Maquette no. 3, still Audrey though

25Feb/103

Maquette no. 3, still Audrey though

For my graduation in 2008 I made an exposition about Audrey Hepburn. I love her.

I had the great luck that at the same time I started working on the assignment, Jan van Toorn and Els Kuijpers gave guestlessons on how to make a good exhibition. It wasn't my year, but I could join in. It made a huge difference. Somehow I was tempted to make some kind of time line thing out of it, it does sound logical at first doesn't it. You would be walking around in Audrey's life as if you were living it. It can be nice, if its a reasoned choice. I learned to look at what is the essence of the subject. The subject and goal of the exhibition became to show her as a woman and as an icon.

Eventually my scheme looked like this:

The most important aspect of the exhibition is A, the ones after that are B, you can also have C's, but I didn't. In this case the A was about the passions that Audrey Hepburn had. (Note: all of these things are as I interpreted them after reading about her, unfortunately (and of course) I never met her). Those passions were her family, children, friends, husband(s) and pets. I felt like they were closest to her, the most important thing in her life and it should have the most prominent spot in the exhibition.

The B's were divided into two themes: work and her private life, there were two rooms so I put each in a room. In there I made another division. The part about Audrey's private life consists of her youth and of her work for Unicef. Even though her work for Unicef was not something extremely private -actually that was not the goal of it either- the reason why it was so important to her, was. The part about her work/career is divided into two parts as well. One is about her love for dance and the other is about her movie career, for which she is best known.

So to come back to the number of maquettes I made... Of course there was quite a lot of sketching involved before I started no. 1, although most of the actual shapes come as I start working, the idea was worked out in advance. The picture is up side down if you compare it to the scheme, but you get the idea. It was to get an idea of how big things were going to be and what was going to be where and how.

After this I started working on the actual maquette for my exams. This all sounds like a piece of cake when I write it down like this. And for the most part it all went pretty smooth. There are three things that make it less easy than it seemed at first. First of all, I have a slight case of perfectionism, which in my case means that I want everything to look as perfect as I can get it. No matter how much time it costs me. The second problem is that nice blue/white thing in the middle. It is the passion part that I was talking about earlier. I wanted it to symbolize Audrey Hepburn the best I could think of. It's like a heart in which she closes all her loved ones (on the inside are huge pictures). And it's made of rough diamond like shapes, none of them are the same. All paper. Ye, it was a lot of work. Then the third lovely problem.. This darling:

You can see she loves the diamond shapes just as much as I do!

The big maquette, no. 2, was actually 90.7 cm by 67 cm. In this one I worked everything out into detail. I cut out little movie posters, and put them -all in the right order- on the wall. I put in a mirror. I made screenshots of her movies and put them in the cinema part, etc. And of course the very important center piece. This was not a sketch, this was for real. Serious business. So I felt like it had to be complete. I learned that the first part of the bowl (as I called it while working on it), was actually the easiest part. When the time comes to close it up on top, it gets harder as well. Stubborn as I am in my perfectionism, it got done. I don't even remember how many hours I put in it, don't think I want to either.

All went well, I graduated. The huge maquette is still stored at my parents house. The other part of my exams, the Hanzelijn was actually a huge project as well. With huge outcome. But somehow I did not have so much trouble with parting with those objects as with this piece. It holds a place in my heart. And my parents house!

Then comes the time after school. I think everybody who's been there knows what I mean. The time to find a job, or start your own business like I did. Either way you have to show people your work. I have this A3 size portfolio, pretty nifty thing. When we were advised to get portfolios some people got a huge-ass A2 one, I must admit that my choice was partly out of easiness. It is easier (and cheaper) to print for an A3 portfolio and a whole lot less work to carry around! But whether I would have gotten the A2 one, or the one I did, in neither one of them fits this marvelous maquette. The sketch version was transportable. But it wasn't very representative. Plus it was partly killed by my darling Lodi (see image 3). I took some good pictures of the big one, I have some drawings of how things work but its just not the same as something spacious. Something that you can get to nose-height so you can actually look through windows.

The whole maquette is based on a real museum. When I started the project I asked a few museums if I could get a map of the museum so I could compare. They were the only one to actually reply, and I got it! The good thing was that the rooms were perfect for my plan. It's been quite a while since a graduated, but I recently contacted them to ask if I could present my exhibition idea to them. I could! So I really look forward to that. Still haven't been there though. You can all guess why! I had the dilemma; do I take my parents car, park it as close as possible with the risk that I have to drag the huge and heavy maquette through the rain and trip so ALL my work is for nothing? I wasn't sure about it. I had to but I didn't really want to. Then I talked to an old teacher of mine and told him about my problem. He came with the smartest and easiest (?) solution. Why not make another maquette? Why didn't I think of this?

So now I'm working on no. 3. It might be the size or the fact that its the third time I'm making it, but it goes quite fast actually. I finished the whole base in a day, now I'm working on the interior. You understand that I will find a solution for the passion bowl. No way I'm going to make that thing again, and then twice as small. In my head there is a discussion going: I was going to type that it would be impossible. But it wouldn't of course, it would just be crazy. I'm tempted to try now. NO! Stop!

I'll keep you posted on whether the bowl will come or not... This is how far I got so far: