Poetic Metamorphosis

Challenge: Using only white copy paper (do not use card stock) make three paper sculptures. The three paper sculptures are to represent the setting discussed in The Metamorphosis and will be miniature. The three sculptures are: a bed, a chest (or container, box, drawers, etc...) and a bug. The bed should contain the following elements: a mattress, a box spring, a bed frame that elevates it from the floor, a headboard and at least one pillow and one blanket. This assignment uses limited materials and does not allow the use of tape or glue. Final solution should be stable and visually communicate your response to the readings. In class we will discuss how line, color, texture, shape, scale, pattern, focal point, balance and repetition can communicate content as well as the perceptions made when viewing the miniature.
Vocab List:
Metamorphosis: a complete change of form, structure, or substance, astransformation by magic or witchcraft.Any complete change in appearance, character,circumstances, etc. A form resulting from any such change.
Arbitrary- whimsical, chance
Indisposition- dislike, disposition
Ascertain- make sure
Scrupulous- extremely careful
Outline/Plot: The story begins with Gregor waking up in bed and finding out that he’s just turned into a giant bug. Despite his state, Gregor feels that he can still go to work. However, he proves unable to do this when he finds he has so much trouble getting out of bed and opening the door. Furthermore, no one can understand him. Gregor’s boss who had come to Gregor’s house to get him to work, leaves in a very nervous state and Gregor worries about losing his job.

His family, however, cannot believe that the bug is Gregor and his father shoves him back into his room when Gregor tries to step out, badly bruising Gregor. Gregor returns to his room and goes to sleep. The family is now faced with the problem of the lack of money since Gregor was the only member of the family that worked. Luckily, the father had saved some money which the family would be able to live off of for about a year. Eventually, each member of the family got a job. Herr, the father, got a job at the bank, Frau, the mother, got a job knitting lingerie, and Grete, Gregor's sister, got a job as a store clerk. The only person who enters the room is Grete who comes by and feeds Gregor twice a day. After time,however, the maid was fired and a charwoman was hired to do the cleaning. Also, the family took up three lodgers to help pay the rent on the flat. These lodgers, however, did not know about Gregor.

One night after dinner, Grete began playing the violin which lured Gregor out into the dining room. The lodgers caught sight of him and Herr pushed them into their room out of sight of Gregor. The lodgers threatened to leave without paying. Gregor was pushed back into his own room. Early next morning, the charwoman came to clean and found Gregor dead in his room. She told the rest of the family. Herr ordered the lodgers out of his house. The entire family then wrote letters to their employers requesting a day off to relax. They then took a train trip where the Samsa’s realized that it was about time that Grete got married.

Work In Progress

Design Objective

My goal for this particular piece was to create a scene that was after-the-fact, after Gregor turned into a bug. The scene that I had in mind from what I had read was dark, musty, and from a very gloomy setting. Therefore, I wanted to portray very dark, melancholy colors to represent the bleakness of Gregor's situation. The greens, blues, and blacks also are to resemble a bug like setting- a place a filth, dirt, and mold- how Gregor actually favored living as a bug.

The furniture was simply to replicate the furniture from the time period of the 1920's-30's. I wanted an elegant, rod iron bed frame with an intricate wooden headboard specifically fashioned by an artisan from the era. That fact that is only a twin sized matress is supposed to represent just how alone Gregor was in this transformation, that he didnt have any comfort from anyone else except the comfort he gave himself. The dresser is more of an interpretation of an old fashioned trunk, typical of that time period.

The fact that the mattress, pillows, and blankets have a worn, beaten down feeling to them furthers my perception that Gregor fully enjoyed the moldy and filthy lifestyle rather than the clean and fresh manner that he was so use to as a human.

I wanted "the bug" to be more iconic than literal. With the colors I tried to create the sense of a bug-like creature, adding textured lines and molding the paper to make a basic shape of a bug. The rest is solely representational. Gregor is getting old and tired-beaten down from all the hardships that he has had to endure. I created an "apple piece" to show the scene where an apple has been embedded in Gregor when his father threw it at him. The bug is iconic to the end of Gregor's bug life, right before he passes on.