The Generations Tree Scroll

Generations Tree

3' fabric wall scroll

Novation

May 2012

Wren Wilson

This is a collaborative piece I did with the lovely artist and fire dancer extraordinaire Kara Chambers.

 I had been wanting to do an image with a large tree concerning generations in families which would fit with my thesis on the butterfly effect. I was (and still am) fascinated by the mythology and the symbolism of the tree of life and collected many images of and inspired by it.

Some examples of tree images I collected.

I had been thinking on themes about how remarkable it is that we are alive specifically because each generation of our ancestors got together. I knew I wanted to do a bold image of a tree because of the cultural image of a family tree. I had been in a black and white photography class with Kara under the tutelage of Mary Bailey Thomas and Kara had produced some stunning botanical photography. 

Examples of Kara's work from our class. 

Especially spectacular were her pinhole photographs, which were produced by taking a piece of photosensitive gelatin silver print paper and putting it in of a sealed box with a small hole on one side. 

This is one of Kara's pinhole photographs, (but not the one used for the collaborative piece.)

Since the class, I had been enamored with her tree photos, and I asked her for permission to modify and reproduce one in a large format. I showed her what I could do by overlaying text on the image with some digital wizardry which would make only the parts of the photo where the text was present visible. We talked together about what the text should contain. We went through several drafts of text and ended up with a version of the following paragraph:

"An extraordinary sequence of events had to happen for you to ever be born. Had your great-great-grandmother and your great-great-grandfather not come together at the exact time that they did, you could not exist. It had to happen at that precise moment for the particular sperm to fuse with the particular egg that would make up the combination of genetic building blocks that would eventually fuse to make you.  If she had met someone else, if he had stopped to tie his shoe, if a falling tree had squashed them, or if anything changed in their lives, the one sperm and egg out of unfathomable numbers would not have united. You would not exist as you do. Now multiply that improbability through every generation of your ancestors. You originate from survivors, people who came together at the right moment for you to come into being."

I then modified the photo with repetitions of the paragraph and had it printed by the wonderful local print agency, Ad Color, on canvas and decided to hang it with a unique scroll style using metal rods. Upon critique by my professor Kim Varnadoe, we decided to reprint it on a semi-transparent fabric and make the text slightly larger and hopefully more legible. It came out even better than we could have hoped and was a hit when it was featured in Novation in May of 2012.  

Detail of the revised print.

Note that I still have the piece and it's available for sale or display in shows if you're interested!

What a Drag

This poster was made during my second college graphic design class. Already, you can see how much my capabilities had evolved since my Breaking the Silence poster. When I created it I was the Public Relations and Media officer for Open Up, Salem College's LGBTQ alliance.

When designing the poster, I wanted to show that there would be both drag kings and queens involved and that it would be playful about gender. I chose kitschy 1960's inspired fonts and saturated cyan and magenta colors playing off of pink for girls and blue for boys. I had a very fun photo shoot with two friends who would be appearing in the drag show to capture the images inside the title. Here's my favorite thing about this poster: the female model featured on the right was wearing no make-up when I shot the photos, so I digitally added the hair appearing on her chin.

That's right, this facial hair is digital!

The little pairs of legs which act as marquees to the event details are from the drag queen who fills up the first letter in the title and the drag king legs on the right are actually from me, who happened to be wearing the slouchiest pants at the photo shoot! I do wish I could share the original photos from the poster photo shoot but I believe they were lost in a dreadful laptop crash.

As a consolation prize, here are some photos from the event via Salem College Student Activities.

Me on the right and my friend Norcea the fabulous dancer doing Justin Timberlake's Sexyback. 

Me and my otherwise super prissy former roommate Laura at the end of  our SNL number. 

The drag queen from the poster, who had some seriously fierce legs. 

The What a Drag poster remains one of my favorite things I created while I was in school.

Breaking the Silence

Breaking the Silence

Digital Poster

Spring 2010

Wren Wilson

Here is one of my earliest poster designs which I made for well attended student activist art festival while I was in my first college graphic design class. The event was intended to raise money and awareness for women in the Congo.

For the poster I recruited my friend Grace, a Congolese student, as my model. 

The color scheme of the poster and the star in the upper left corner are based on the Congolese flag. 

We also had the design printed on a T-shirts. 
Here are some of them modeled on step team members on the night of the event. 

Other design considerations: I thought that the chosen principal font, Orator, fit with the activist theme. I consulted with the organizers of the event and we wanted to emphasize to campus visitors that the event was free so I chose "It's free" as the lead copy after the event title. It was purely coincidental that the lighting on her forehead ended up looking like the outline of the Congo.

 The poster was so popular that we had to reprint them because the first ones we printed got stolen!


Here are a few more photos from the successful event:

Here I am working in the tech booth at the performance. Look at that long hair!

Another angle of those t-shirts at the sign in table

Singers and spoken word performers, some accompanied by the talented Daphne Nichols. 

The Salem College Ghost Ryders (Step Team)

I wish there had been photos from the art show outside of the performance, it was very cool. 

Photos courtesy of Salem College student activities.