no translation required

We had a wonderful final reception for the No Translation Required exhibition gallery viewing. The show looked great as we had work covering the entire gallery space. It was a nice combination of works by the HBK and SCAD students. After all of the work that we put into our projects it was great to see it all laid out in front of us and on display for all to see. There was a reception following the exhibition opening that brought everything full circle. The reception was a great way to end our adventure but I must admit was very sad towards the end. It seemed as if we were all realizing for the first time that we would be leaving Germany and all of our new friends. We all shared laughs as we talked about our trips adventures and debacles over a wide selection of cheeses and champagne. After the reception it was time to make a mad dash back to the hotel to pack up the last of our stuff and catch cabs to the train station. We traveled through the German countryside by train and were able to see some sights that cities like Berlin and Köln couldn’t provide. Massive forests of evergreen trees, rolling hills and scenic towns lined our route. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay awake for the entire ride as the previous evenings events and the nonstop action of our final day proved to be too much. The train ride back to Frankfurt was the perfect ending to our amazing trip. Peaceful, relaxing and a great way to reflect on all that we had seen and experienced. I couldn’t have asked for more.

Braunschweig

Today is the day that the pages are due for our final collaborative book. I have been up late trying to get my book up to the quality I desire and then assembling the cover for my book. I head to the hotel for a short nap, making sure I am back by lunchtime. When I get back I find that I have a grammatical error that needs fixing as soon as possible. So, I head back to the computer to make the change and reprint my inside paper that I had already glued down. Luckily, I am able to peel the paper off smoothly and replace it with the corrected print out without too much trouble. After I completed my edit, the professors also recommend that I enclose the loose cards inside of my book. To make sure the cards don’t fall out when people handle my book, I cut a paper that I wrap the cards tightly in so they do not slip out of the small box inside of my book. After completing these edits smoothly, I am relieved to have my work complete. So, I go up and see what the professors are doing to the gallery above the HBK library. All the books are on the outer wall and the professors are having a discussion. I browse each book and love the way all the work had come together so well. The gallery is at this point filled with empty white boxes that will soon be filled with books for the exhibition. What we had anticipated has finally arrived.

Day before the exhibition

Today was a studio workday with time set aside in the afternoon to set up the exhibition. Our last two projects were due today; a group collaborative book and our individual books that incorporated a German and English word. This meant these books could be featured in the exhibition.

For my portion of the collaborative project, I replicated the human circulatory system in stitched thread onto acetate. Since we were producing an edition of four, this took a considerable amount of time to execute. I had one of the four pages done in time for the exhibition, so I used the rest of the day to work on the other three, which would be displayed at a later time. After all our artists’ books were installed in the gallery, there was time left for everyone to do their own thing before the farewell dinner with the HBK students and Professor Stoltz,whether it was hanging out, grabbing a quick nap, or start packing. Our last dinner in Braunschweig was located at a restaurant right next to the school and was quite appetizing.

Today was a studio production day. Not too much on anyone’s mind today other than fine tuning ideas and making final decisions.  Some ideas I am having for the final collaboration book are to make a page combining all the books I have made on the trip. I used the timeline idea from my first book, the ink pad technique to create mountains for my boat book and the collage effect from my third book.

From what I have seen and heard of everyone else’s ideas, this final collaborative book is going to be something to see for sure!

The HBK Library at Dusk

SCAD Students wander the Streets of Braunschweig

The Kiosk

"Prost!"

The Three Musketeers

Dan and Kent's last "Hallo!" from the Ritter St. George Hotel

Parting is such sweet sorrow... or... Lawren is mad that she has to be in a picture with me...

Dano finally getting some z's on our last train ride to Frankfurt

June 18th, 2009

Today was the day that things were getting down to the wire. Some students were working on two to three projects to get them done for the exhibit. While everyone was pretty stressed out about their work, I think the reigning emotion was that everyone was beginning to get pretty sad that this experience was coming to a close. It was really tough to spend our last days stuck inside a studio when all we wanted to do was really spend time with so many of the people that had touched us or just simply go on one more photo shoot of our surroundings. Four of the SCAD students dared to muster up the courage and walked the fine line of time-management and met two of HBK students out for one last slice of Braunschweig nightlife.

Snap-shots of the night include: Trying to explain “That’s what she said” to Lotte Buchholz and Nefis Okan, Sarabeth and myself claiming that we would fearlessly walk down the Braunschweig’s red light district, trying our first cola-beers,my announcement of running for Czar of Public Transportation upon returning home, Dan’s unwavering dancing machine, finding out that the kiosk is actually the preferred hangout for students over bars, learning the proper way to prost with your Kleiner Feigling, the first and only time my heels came out the entire trip, Rebecca meeting a young man who told her that there were no girls like her in his village and laughing over flyers that claimed “I love you, but I’ve chosen Dizko”.

It was quite a fun and much needed break. Our host had been so wonderful and we all were very sad that our journey was coming to an end just as everyone was really getting to know each other.

Stacey Cassidy
Cleveland, Ohio

Wednesday June 17, 2009

While in Germany I have had so many great opportunities to meet with new friends, old friends, and tonight people I haven’t seen for nine years (I hope I recognize them!).

In 2000 I visit Germany with my family, and we stayed at the home of the Mellin family where my dad did a foreign exchange.

The family drove in to Braunschweig tonight from Hannover. There were seven of them that came! It was so great to see them all again. One of the nephews, Henry, attends school in Braunschweig at a technical university.

He toured us around and I got to see some things I hadn’t discovered yet. We went out to a great dinner and I was able to catch up with everyone, or rather talk about all my experiences since I was 12 years old. Ludwig and Ingrid’s niece had studied in Texas during a high school exchange program. She helped me with some translation issues and told me she couldn’t wait to go back to the States!

Ingrid told me stories of their year -long travel throughout the states in 1983 and Ludwig was telling me funny stories about my Dad when he was in high school.

I always love hearing things about my parents that I never knew before. The one thing I will never forget when I was here in 2000 was the German obsession with football (soccer). So of course the night involved going to a bar to watch some soccer and play foosball (table soccer). It was so much fun, but I am not a good goalkeeper!

Before I had met with the Mellin family last night I was a bit nervous about what we would talk about since it had been so long. I was anxious about the awkwardness of the situation. In the end though it ended up being one of the highlights of my experiences here! They were so friendly and generous. Ludwig told me I could come live with them for the rest of the summer if I wished – If only I could!

Today the German and American students got together to discuss the progress of our current projects. While the German students showed off their design skills in the form of typographic books and a transition project; the American students displayed their Rhine cruise books and the status of their second project. The projects were very well received and useful feedback was given to just about every student in the room. A unique twist was put on an important concept today and that was to treat white space as if it were black because white space is as important as the other marks on the page. While I have been taught and know the importance of white space, I hadn’t quite heard it put that way before. As a designer it seems that I’m always fighting for white space. I enjoy white space and appreciate whitespace. However, I learned that Asian culture appreciates and respects whitespace more than Western culture. Critiques are always helpful when it comes to the progression of your work and figuring out which direction you need to take your ideas. When a critique helps you to change the way you create and design fundamentally, now that’s something special.

We will now continue to work on our projects using the feedback that we received today. All of the feedback was appreciated and will be used to advance our ideas and work.

On a side note of feedback: paper selection was a topic today. I would like to take this time to mention a paper store that I had the honor of visiting today. Idee is a store like none that I have seen before. So clean and colorful it was that I had to take pictures while in the store. I asked and was told that it’s only in Germany and France. That’s too bad because if it were in the US… certain stores would have quite a bit of competition!

Danke.

Monday June 15

This was a very productive day for most of us. It was one of our first full workdays, and the HBK students kindly shared their studio space with us. Everyone seemed to be working in various directions toward different goals: some printing on the letterpress, some clicking away on Photoshop, and others were away from the studio busily collecting German found objects.

Today I worked out kinks before beginning to assemble my artist’s book, measuring down to the millimeter. This second assignment was left open ended. Previous projects had been given strict guidelines and restrictions, so we were all excited to get started on a book design of our own choosing. I decided to push the idea of what a book can be, choosing to make five collapsible origami balloons. Each balloon would serve as an unbound page to my book. Before folding the balloons, I reverse printed (printed the negative space with the roller) onto the outside of the paper to create a forward reading word on each balloon when viewed from the inside. Then I made a custom box to hold the five balloons together. This was the idea for the book, but during this workday I only had time to work out the specifics and make a template for my box. To complete my project, it would take an additional six hours of printing, two hours of folding paper, three hours of covering the boards with bookcloth, and another two hours to assemble the box and work out last minute difficulties. This would become my favorite artist’s book that I created in Germany.

Post 3:

Day 14

June 14, 2009

Today, I traveled back from Köln with Reeve, Kent and Daniel. We left a little earlier than the rest of the group so that we could get started on our third assignment that was due on Tuesday. The train rides back to Braunschweig went very smoothly and we arrived at each platform very conveniently leading to our next train. When we got back we decided to get right to work after dropping our bags off at the hotel. We all got a lot done and were well prepared for the studio the next.

Post 2:

shrine with the bones of the Magi through gates

traditional stained glass window of the Cologne Cathedral

controversial stained glass window by Gerhard Richter

June 14th, 2009

Köln (Cologne)

What a beautiful city and what a beautiful day! Yesterday and today were the first time we got a break in the weather. I could finally make use of all the flip-flops and tank tops I packed. I spent my afternoon before I headed back to Braunschweig at the massively impressive Cologne Cathedral. The cathedral is a colossal sight to take in. It is approximately 475’ high and 275’ wide with highly detailed intricate stonework all the way to the top. Construction of the cathedral began in 1248 and took almost 600 years to complete. From 1880 until 1884, the cathedral was the tallest structure in the world until the Washington Monument was built. It was quite a phenomenal feeling looking up at it from the bottom. The sheer size interior archways was breathtaking, never mind the elaborate décor of them. Although it was hit over seventy times during Word War II, the cathedral stood tall over a flattened city.

There was so much to take in here. From elaborate floor mosaics to decorative side chapels, it was overwhelming. The shrine to the Three Kings is a large gilded sarcophagus dating from the 13th century and is believed to contain the remains of the Three Wise Men. The beautiful stained glass widows were amazing, even the controversial new edition by German artist, Gerhard Richter. One could spend weeks at the Cologne Cathedral and not fully absorb the all of the artistic ventures that make this historical site so impeccably important.

Stacey Cassidy
Cleveland, Ohio

Post 1:

Sunday 6-14-09

Start Time - 12am midnight

Stacey, Sarabeth, and I met up with a couple of British guys we had met the night before. They are on “holiday” in Köln to see a boxing match, and had heard about a party at an artist’s studio complex. After having been in Germany for a little over two weeks now it was refreshing to meet some people that understood what we were saying without having to rely on Stacey to translate.  It took the six of us awhile to navigate our way through the city by metro and on foot, and after some searching we ended up finding a  dark driveway with a very long line of people waiting to get into a party/show at this weird artist’s studio complex.

Time - 2am

As we waited in line we took in our surroundings. All around us were giant heaps of scrap metal and old rusted farm equipment. Once we finally got in, there were DJ’s playing techno. We settled into a warm spot by a bonfire outside and spent the rest of our evening talking to our British friends.

Time - 6am

The party was still going on when the sun came. We called it a night (or morning), fell into a cab and went to sleep back at our hotel.

Time - 11am

From a dead sleep I awoke to the alarm I had set.  The techno from earlier in the morning was still ringing in my ears as I quickly packed and checkout of the hotel. I walked along the river to the Hauptbahnhof (train station) and ran into Sarabeth.  She had figured out that the next train wouldn’t be coming for a while. We found a coffee down the street before catching our train.

Time - 1pm

After getting settled on the train Sarabeth and I spent the time working, napping and enjoying another in a long series of these rides on the Deutsche Bahn.

Time - 5pm

We arrived back in Braunschweig. After a quick stop at the hotel we went to the studio. With one week left to finish our books, there is no time to waste.  I’m really excited to see what everyone will come up with this week for our exhibition!

Tschüss!

This day started out with a bang. Taking the train to Koblenz I had no idea what a cruise would consist of, but I was excited. We traveled from Koblenz to Mainz, where we stayed the previous weekend. I loved the city of Mainz so I was anxious for the arrival, but first we had to get there.

Boarding the S-bahn, the ride seemed like any other…so I thought. I sat right in the middle of two elderly couples giggling at the sight of Americans trying to comprehend which seats were and weren’t already reserved. After some time, no communication was conducted between them and myself. So, I decided I’d have a go at it by saying “the weather is so nice out.” They all grinned and nodded at me. Then they said something in German and laughed, so I just start laughing with them. What was this? One of the most common worldwide similarities was communicated: laughter. They were thrown off at first, but then they continued speaking German, sounding like gibberish to me. The woman sitting next to me hugged me, laughed, and spoke some more. This cycle continued for the rest of the train ride. Strangely enough, with no language between us laughter sealed our friendship.

We finally arrived in Koblenz and I was ready to go. My new train friends had me thinking positively. We boarded what was probably one of the biggest boats I’ve ever been on in my life. Wait…! Where was Stacey???? Someone told me that she had rushed back to the hotel to find her lost ticket. As we left the dock, I thought to myself, “I’m guessing Stacey didn’t make it.” But, I later learned that she ended up going on her own boat trip, so everything worked out nicely.

Most of us spent our time diligently working on our books in the boat’s restaurant, slowly but surely, racking up bills ordering snacks here and there. Seeing many different scenic castles, mansions, and little vintage cottages in the landscape, the view was definitely something I was awed by.

The last hour of our river expedition was probably my favorite. At this point, most of the people had gotten off of the boat and the sun gave us a break. We enjoyed the weather and each other’s company. The word tranquil comes to mind. The perfect ending to a day of boat riding.