can the idea of tropism be less scientific?

can i take the ideas of tropism, alchemy and fertility; combine them into something less scientific and direct as i initially thought and take a less literal sense when i want to create? such as joshua davis and commonwealth did to produce these vases based on tropism, but how closely is tropism related to their pieces? website: http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/tropism_where_graphics_meets_product_design_and_digital_manufacturing_6475.asp
other website: http://mocoloco.com/archives/004253.php

where these are really stylized vases that play on the idea of tropism without actually using the plants but designing around the whole idea that light plays effect on the pod/seed growth, how connected am i to having the actual plant growing through different forms that i create (i was thinking more structural, but now possibly more podlike and flowing with delicate mazes and forms on the insides of vessels), would a larger scale vessel/teapot/etc. be the way for me? sculptures even? i've wanted to play with materials outside of metal for a while bc i miss making sculptures since metal takes all my time away from this, but i was definetly interested in playing with the alchemy thread by where a plant does not survive, but dies and leaves its remains, turning this point into gold/precious material to signify the remembrance of the plant and marking its life as precious

is it possible to connect these two?


Can i connect growing plants with how creativity and fertility are connected, becaue all three foster a new "life." This makes me think how plants are fertile (along with the fertility of humans, animals, etc), can my creativity be connected to this and grow and develop into something new and different, really opening and developing into something new for my work, reinventing itself almost. Can the sense of alchemy play a role is this experimentation also?
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
al·che·my [al-kuh-mee]
1. a form of chemistry and speculative philosophy practiced in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and concerned principally with discovering methods for transmuting baser metals into gold and with finding a universal solvent and an elixir of life.
2. any magical power or process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.

by casting the plants that i've potentially grown in silver/gold (or plated gold) where I have used the process of "transumting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value

tropisms...can they affect you and others...

so far i've researched different effects that plants respond to other than light (tropism) and these are factors that i can put into play when i set stages for each plant and cover them not finding out the answer till they are unveiled and cast, cover each with paper so that it does not cast, but us only unveiled once the piece is cast in silver.
these are different effects that could take place on a plant:
Chemotropism, movement or growth in response to chemicals
Gravitropism (or geotropism), movement or growth in response to gravity
Hydrotropism, movement or growth in response to moisture or water
Heliotropism, movement or growth in response to sunlight
Phototropism, movement or growth in response to light
Thermotropism, movement or growth in response to temperature
Thigmotropism, movement or growth in response to touch or contact
Host tropism or cell tropism, the host range of pathogens
Ecotropism, limited host range (e.g. infects only one species or cell type)
Amphotropism, wide host range (e.g. infects many species or cell types)

websites that i've looked through and researched:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics
http://members.tripod.com/~busiweb/hydro/juice.htm
http://library.thinkquest.org/C0110342/lessonplan/howtogrow.html
http://www.bghydro.com/BGH/items.asp?Cc=GS&iTpStatus=0&Tp=&Bc=&s_kwcid=hydroponic%20grow%20systems|949026497&gclid=CNHvhY7k2o4CFQMsFQodujPSBA
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/reference/encyclopaedia/hutchinson/m0007087.html
http://www.hydroponics.com/info/scienceprojects.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_physiology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropism
questions that i asked myself when researching were:
1)what was the name of the artist that made a stage for the growth of vegetables 2)what made her think of making tomatoe rings. 3)how does light effect plants, this lead me to ask 4) what other factors could take affect on a plant other than light and stage set 5)how can i set a stage and put other things into play 6)what is hydroponic growth and 7)how do you make that happen 8)is it really what i want to do? 9)or should i set the same stage and have different factors come into play over the same plant, stag, but different growth factor (earth, sun, gravity, etc) 10)how will all of this work out and change into a series, portfolio and/or jewelry

tomatoe rings?

Hilde De Decker arrived at this line/experimentation where "It started from a true story: a farmer had lost his wedding ring in the field and found it a season after with a tomato grown inside it. To make the jewelry, Hild De Decker fits the ring over the tender young fruit. Adjusting, intervening, leading, every week or every day, she creates jewelry folowing the rhythm of the vegetables"


i would look into actually preserving the plant rather than the actual plant being worn, everything would be permanent
Hilde's website http://www.hildededecker.com/ has many images of her work and the tomato/vegetable rings.

another thought...

When writing in my stream of consciousness journal i was thinking about another jeweler (i forgot her name will ask professor) who created stages for tomatoe growth altering the tomatoes shape permanently because there were wires wrapped around inhibiting the typical shape of the tomatoes and peppers. This made me think of a project i did in junior high where i created an environment so that the plant i was growing would follow the light, altering its shape and size even. Could i replicate this same experiment at a smaller scale with lima beans or another type of plant so that i alter its state/shape of growth. In effect making a series of wire/wax structures where i can then take these structures and naturally burn out and cast silver in place making an interesting piece, that plays with growth and development of a plant, where it can change everything and possibly showeverything that the plant goes through in growing...

topic to research...interesting but not quite right

i went to the daphne farago lecture at the museum of fine arts and there were many fine points made by the curator of the exhibit, which she brought in from the artists inside of the collection. The lecture touched on the subject of how different artists think about the body and materials.
One thought that stood out to me were from Diane Falkenstein and her action scupltures, who like Jackson Pollok as an action sculptor (jackson-painter) and how something so solid and permanent could at one time be molded and dripped into a solid form, that you could tell was once in liquid/movement forms.
Another was how creativity and fertility are connected, both fostering a new "life." by Ruudt Peters, who connected the two through the belly being a holder and making a container to hold onto the thought of creativity. Other thoughts from Ruudt Peters involved what materials were masculine and feminine and how alchemy could play a role into his work and others.
thrown away materials vs. what is precious (garbage vs memories or gold/silver)
the hand is an instrument of contact with another body what are other body parts the instrument of


Jan Yager looked at city nature turning crack vials, needles, dirty nature of the city into wearable, beautiful art and then looking to the nature of the city growing through the sidewalk cracks and using these things to demonstrate the persistance of life through everything bad.
All of these i thought were interesting ways to look and think of researching and reworking into my own ideas and work. Can i take several of these topics and research and eventually connect some of them together or are they there for seperate ideas that can change and develop my work style into something new.

and we begin...

as we went through each set of work, i kept thinking how interesting it is how different people process information and put what they are thinking about into their work and develop work based around what they are thinking and constantly changing and experimenting with materials and processes to achieve these things as artists and most of us as eventual teachers, how can you bring all this into your style and mission for teaching where you will be sharing your knowledge and art with your students, helping to shape their mind and keep their styles and ideas individual not guiding them in way of ideas but techniques and methods.