The Process Project : NCSU

*Walking through Nash Square was a little more pleasant and "park-like" than Moore Square. I didnt spend too much time at Nash and have primarily focused on Moore. My first impression of Moore was that it was pretty trashy especially for the amount of garbage cans surrounding the park. I would much rather sit on a bench at lake Johnson, I get more of a park feeling time to chill and relax. I don't exactly get the impression of a tourist attraction. The City Market is nice because of the quaint shops and the lights at night. The Exploris is something to see and there are some "nice" resturaunts and bars. But that is only a 1/3 of the square and the rest is a school, churches, "killo pest control", and the Salvation army. It could be scary if I was there by myself at night but during the day I was perfectly fine by myself. Its fun to observe.

* There were a lot of people at different times and certain days: like in the early morning for work and school, noon for lunch, people coming and going from the bus station, delivery men, homeless people coming and going from Salvation Army. There are business men, couples going to museums or to dinner, children, people passing through, people sitting on benches,
asking for money etc etc.

*I chose to focus on Moore Square and if I exlored Nash also I probably would have came up with some different results. However, since I restricted myself to Moore, I found that Moore is a place and different people come and go here for a lot of the same reasons, such as: school, bars, the night out, museums, salvation army, job, leisure, money, food. Of course there was a sort of a common theme. If I went to the mall, a campus, office building, or inside places I could come up with a totally different collection that would be interesting to compare with Moore.

I used my camera for collecting photographs of the people as well as interaction with them as well. I wanted to capture the people in the moment at times not interacting with them at all, as well as stopping them and taking a portrait of them which can have a completely different meaning compared to what they were doing before I stopped them. Conversation definitely altered and aided my first impression of them. I decided to walk around the park and take pictures of people that walked by me or I saw at a distance, then I would stand at a certain point for maybe 5 minutes and take shots, I would try to get people doing things like certain gestures(walking fast, twirling an umbrella, eating, smoking). I also went at night to get a different scene and people, I even started to get a little more bold and spark conversation with the people. Sometimes I had a bias toward them because they didnt seem very approachable and I was even declined when I asked if I could take a picture of them. It was fun to talk to people though to see what they were doing, who they were, and why they were at Moore Square. So my mood did impact the conversation that I made. It did rain one day I was there, I was there on a weekday, weekend and during the night, all revealing different aspects of the square.

Moore square was bigger, and seemed more "official," given the presence of man-in-booth, and the surrounding establishments… but I chose Nash square, as it was more accessible/empty. At first, facing the park, it looked boring and homogenous, yet complex (unclear where the walkways led). So I sought out features like monuments and unusual trees, and eventually mapped the area. I was particularly interested in the symbol of the masons on one plaque; it appears several places on campus as well.

I felt completely safe, near a fire station, and busy enough streets, perhaps over-confident in the thought that the worst the fella’s would do was ask for money, which they did.

One man and his belongings were ever-present on one bench, businesspersons and presumed construction workers made a b-line from one corner to the other, and a couple mothers with child strolled in the center of the park. A few more random folk, in their late 20s, passed through, more-so in the afternoon than in the morning. Everyone I observed arrived and left on foot, so the semi-full parking lot along one side, was clearly used for else.

I far exceeded the only limit of the assignment, to collect 50 things, despite effort to collect certain amounts, and properly represent the place; I kept seeing more categories (people, kinds of plants, food, cars, etc.) and wanted the lists to be in multiples of five, to help later organize. The smallest collection was that of actual items, due to own fear of disease, so I ended up shooting a lot of garbage. People, I photographed from a distance or off to some angle; to capture them in natural relationship to the place. (aka, i was afraid of them knowing I was taking their picture.)

I went 3 times, over the course of 2 days; the weather was gray each visit, but it made a fine background for dark tree branches. I enjoyed the extra time to meander about, made possible by this relatively unbusy first week of school.
Cheers.

When I first pulled up to the Moore Square area, by accident and not by following the directions closely, I was struck by the location. The square is surrounded by city and private buildings as well as constantly moving traffic. Upon my first walk through of the park, I noticed its size and relative "thinness." At no point in the park could I have lost vision of the street and surrounding area. Once in the park, you are hardly able to escape, each vantage point brings more of the outer lining city into view. I found the personality of the square's inhabitants particularly delightful. I think that being in such an open place brings out a level of insecurity in many. I also thought that my experience in the park, as a foreign observer, was far from the norm. I think that many of those there while I was there were regulars and were confused and made nervous by my presence. One man watched me watch him collect things from the trash, as if I were there only to watch him, his paranoia heightened.

The Moore Square space is multifaceted. It is used by many people in transient— homeless-looking people waiting in the park for the bus across the street, business men and women create a shortcut through it to various buildings and restaurants. The park is also used as a place to dump trash or for businesses to use for geographical familiarity. For example, "business located on Moore Square." Other "visitors" include tourists directed by unknowingly poor travel guides. On one of my visits, a group of young students played "duck, duck, goose" under the watchful eye of school teachers.

My gathering and collection process was different from a lot of people whom I've heard discuss. I was not at all concerned with selecting 50 things or any organization by numbers. I collected somewhere around 200 things and then edited down to somewhere around 60. Before I went to the square, I decided to bring with me as many tools as possible: digital camera, slr camera, sketch pads of different sizes, pastels, markers, charcoal, rubbing materials, scissors, notebook to write, etc. I kept my gear in my car and would go back and forth choosing my tools for recording. After using all of these tools, I edited my collection down and eliminated a lot of different tools to mainly slr photos and actual objects collected. I went to the square during the morning on a sunny day. I think that my most important driving force was my mood, stream of consciousness and imagination. I found that I was led to different objects because of the connection that I created. I started by surveying the area, its inhabitants and the atmosphere. My first major find was the part of a kitchen chair. This led me to identify with having breakfast in the park. Other breakfast items followed: fruit, silverware, napkins, tea bag. Lastly, I investigated the objects and the human experience with them. For example, the force and mindset involved in carving in a chair.

For my final piece, I evaluated the issues that arose from my finds and tried to combine them in a way that more concisely discussed my experiences...

My first impressions of the site were formed because of the beautiful weather and the fact it was morning, no one was around, and I didn't get lost on my way downtown (which is AMAZING). All of these factors made for a very calming experience.

Walking into the square, I had no expectations. I stopped at the first thing that caught my attention, which was a huge magnolia tree. From here, I planned to look around and decide where to focus for the day. However, the limbs under which I was sitting were so beautiful that I didn't leave my spot for over an hour. From here, I began drawing the tree branches, and continued a study of the basic forms in sight.

The requirement of 50 things had an effect on the quality of my drawings. I began in pencil, but quickly noticed that a thick marker gave me more speed and fluidity. This enabled me to draw the shapes with less hesitation. A comparison between the building (and man-made) structures and the plant life soon deveolped. To collect a greater amount, the sketches were small, undeveloped, and simple.

I saw only a few people in the square, all in passing. This allowed my experience there to be very personal. Afterwards, I tried to get a sense of how the organic shapes within the park had a direct relationship to the connected feeling I experienced. This began an exploration in the similarities of plant and human anatomy.

Muscles are layered like soil, skeletons have the structure of tree trunks, our nerves and veins run up and down like roots. Seeds and eggs twins in purpose and form.

Growth inside the square is a comfort in contrast to the city, which has no physical relationship to our bodies. It is interesting that what is functional in the natural world may not be very practical for that which is man-made.

On the first day of this first project, I went to Nash Square and then to Moore Square and found they are very interesting places. The way that I felt in each was very different. Nash Square is much quieter and less crowded. Moore Square is louder and has a lot of homeless people hanging out. I was drawn to Nash Square because it was a very comfortable environment. I could sit quietly and watch people go by and it wasn’t a bit deal. Moore Square, however, made me a little uncomfortable. I didn’t feel as calm or welcome to sit and watch people go by.

While I was there, I made some first impression, stream-of-conciousness notes about what I first saw, felt, and experienced:

-forgotten memorials

-a fake rose to commorate the dead

-memories

-trash

-I bet there are a hundred-thousand stories behind each of the names on these memorials. Why were these people important? Who wanted to remember him? Why should I care?

-As I was sitting here, this guy walked by with this staff of walking stick with tons of…stuff on it. Necklaces, jewelry, shoes, all kinds of stuff. Quite a collection.

-permanent things; transient things

-It’s cool that I have the freedom to sit here and not be bothered.

One very interesting thing that I found when experiencing this space for the first time was how these sites are used. There are homeless people and business people alike as well as everyone in between. I saw two different news reporters using Nash Square as a background for some sort of news report. Most of the homeless people just sat on benches I guess to pass the time. Most of the business people just hurried through on their way to somewhere else. It’s sort of unsettling how fast they go.

The assignment, especially the number of things we had to collect influenced my collection quite a bit. Had I been collecting ten things, I would have been much more careful, I think, in collecting interesting and unique things. Collecting fifty things is a bit more difficult. I pretty much just took what I could get. Having to collect this many also challenged me because in the beginning I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to collect that many names.

The tools and methods that I used to collect things had less of a role in determining what I collected. I pretty much just tried to find names and however I could document or collect them, I would do that. Sometimes it was photographing, sometimes it was taking the actual object, on a few of the three-dimensional names, I even made rubbings. Had I been restricted in how I collected them (i.e. just photos or just found objects) I think the collection would have been pretty limited. There were a certain kind of names that were found objects and very different kinds of names that I photographed.

I went to the square during the afternoon almost every time so I’m not sure what the square is like at other times during the day (something to check out). When I went, though, I went during times that I had plenty of time to spend to look and collect names. What might be interesting is to go for just a short period of time and see what I experience when I’m in a hurry. For the most part, my mood was pretty neutral. Near the end of my time collecting I was getting sort of impatient and this probably caused me to just take any name that I could get rather than be very selective.

I had many preconceived notions of the atmosphere of Moore Square (my chosen location). Most of all I expected it to be safe, since we are in Raleigh. I've seen a lot worse as far as downtown spaces go. It was trashy, and unkempt. Later, I found out that the city cleans it up a few times a year around special events (like the First Night New Year's celebration). That made me so angry! I collected trash and I collected objects that I found. The trash did not belong on the ground, and I gradually began to throw things away (but not too much, I wanted to leave some for the rest of us to use as inspiration). I plan on going back down there just to help clean it up on my own time. My visits were at varied times of day, in different weather, and in different increments of time. I visited at dusk, nighttime on a weekend, early morning, lunch time; sometimes it was sunny, but mostly it was cloudy and/or rainy. This dampered my mood and gave a more negative impression of the spot.

My collection began as a way to show the "point-of-view" of someone (or something) who experiences this place on a consistent basis. I photographed, reflected through writings, collected objects, scanned objects, made movies, talked to park patrons. Then I researched more on my own about the space (net surfing and the such). Quickly, my idea evolved into a comparison/juxtapostion of the four sides of Moore - Hargett, Person, Blount, and Martin. These streets/sides of the square each evoked different feelings and descriptions to me as a patron. I conjured up adjectives for each, and began to use direction in my photography, These ideas came out in my photos, and I felt that the best way to represent my ideas was to montage images/photos/scanned objects from my collection.

Ultimately, I became more "connected" with the Person Street side of Moore Square, mostly because it gave me the most uncomfortable feeling, but also the most hopeful. This part serves the transient population of our community, which would explain why Moore is a homeless hangout. The city has tried to hide the urban poverty here by projects of new schools, and the construction of Exploris Museum.

Moore Square is not destitute, it is just not as loved as it could be. City Market is bright and loud on the weekends and at night, and many of the sophisticated restaurants on Blount Street bring a more ritzy crown of park patrons. Exploris is also very popular and vibrantly crowded with children. Moore Square is a melting pot of humanity, and indicative of the types of people that Raleigh (and any big city) harbors.

-I had been to both the sites previous to this project, but my first impresssions this semester of the sites have alot to do with my approaches to them. I live almost downtown so walked to them with my dog, I enjoy downtown districts (I won't venture to call raleigh a real city) as well as walking so I figured that it would be a good way for me to visit the two squares. I got to Nash square first walking up hargett street. And there were two things I noticed immediately. The green grass and the bare trees. I also noticed of course the number of benches and the corner entrances and the plaques layed in the ground and the statue. In the square that day there was a tv interview. Other than that there weren't even many passers-by walking around. I found Nash square to have a posative feeling/energy about it. It seemed to be a bit of a relaxing oasis in the middle of grey blocky buildings. Continuing up hargett from Nash square I got to Morris Square. That was not so pleasent of an experience. I like the fact that it was populated with people, but I didnt' have a relaxing or peaceful feeling about the place. Maybe it is because of the loud buses from the bus station. Or all the trash on the ground. Or maybe that each opposite street front that faced each side of the square was completely different from the next. I think that is enough said about morris square.
- Both spaces had the walk through feeling, but morris squre i think had a faster more hurried pace about it. Morris square also had more people in it at any given time than I saw in nash square. This I would say has to do with the buisness around morris square vs the offices around nash.
- My collection of tree shapes/silluettes I'm sure had alot to do with my state of mind when I got there as well as the fact that it was an overcast day first day I went down there for teh project, and the fact that it was pouring rain the time I went down to collect My images. I used my camera as a method for collecting information because of the ability to zoom and focus on different things.

I always knew about Moore Square and passed it all of the time, but never stopped to think about it. I think that's what most people in Raleigh do too. They use it as a shortcut or just walk through it on their way to somewhere else more important. So my first impression was that Moore Square is not valued for what it really is(or has the potential to be): a small piece of nature in the middle of downtown.

Since I realized that most people weren't valuing the space, I decided to record how people walked through it; how they spent their time in the square. I organized these observations by the amount and type of people that walked in front of me. I found that almost half of the people that were in the park were single men. Most women walked in groups.

I never felt unsafe, but I was very cautious about when I went to the square. I didn't go after 3 or 4 in the afternoon and I only went once by myself. I'm sure I could have gathered different information if I had been there at night, but I didn't feel right about being there without a lot of people. The weather also affected the amount of time I spent. I was willing to spend a lot more time watching people when it was warm.

(ok...so I don't know HTML and I am not around anyone to ask. Sorry that it is posting as one long paragraph instead of 5 seperate ones)

>My first impression of Moore Square was about how desolate it felt. Despite all of the foot traffic through it the first day I went (around 5pm), it still felt very empty. I too feel slightly uncomfortable every time I go there and feel relief everytime I see one of my fellow classmates there at the sametime. I feel a sense of territoriality from the regulars of the park that makes me feel unwelcome and adds to my discomfort. I feel like I'm invading someone's turf.

My second visit had a more positive feeling, possibly because it was morning. I was there for somewhere around three hours and the longer time made me feel more comfortable, as though the longer time I spent the more I felt like it was my space that other people were walking through. I worked really hard at trying to pretend that I didn't notice people watching me doing the rubbings. I was approached by three people which I personally don't enjoy becuase I feel far more comfortable being left alone, but I was in a great mood and actually talked to each of them for several minutes.

My third visit was very brief (about 15 minutes). It was very cold and grey, and there was a group of men congregated in one spot the whole time. This gathering made me very uncomfortable and right as I was about to leave I was approached by the same man who had hit on me the week prior which makes me leary of going by myself anymore. I do not respond well to talking to strangers anyway, and certainly not when they're coming on to me. I am not good with dealing with it and I freeze up. Instead of just saying "no thanks, I'm not single" or some other polite form of rejection to get rid of him, I took his phone number. I am angry with myself for freezing like deer in headlights. Needless to say, this third visit was fruitless and I didn't get anything useful for my collection.

The square is mostly used as a thoroughfare to the surrounding establishments. I noticed that when people sit and linger in the space they tend to be there for long periods of time. While there is a wide range of types of people who walk through the square (business people, students, homeless people...etc.), I found that those who anchor there tend to appear to be homeless.

By having to collect 50 things, I had to keep looking more closely at things I had already looked at. By setting my collection to be rubbings, the things I could take rubbings from had to be permenant and stable things. This eliminated organic things since I was using the spoon and getting reliefs in the paper. Had I chosen to use charcoal and other materials to get different kinds of rubbings then I could have gotten less permenant items in the collection as well. Fifty was definately a challenge to find and some of the rubbings weren't as satisfying as others. Towards the end, I was willing to take anything just to finish.

I can't edit my post but I see that it did post as seperate paragraphs when it was previewing as one long one.

I only went to Moore Square for this project, and my first impression was that it seemed kind of sad. The plants were struggling and patchy, and it just seemed like a place that used to be pretty and has lost it's sparkle. Then I remembered that it is winter--a horrible, barren season--and that the square may look better at other times of year. It seemed too exposed to the city around the square.

I felt self-conscious while I was walking around. I felt like the people there were watching everything I did. I kind of felt like I was in someone's space where I shouldn't be.

It seems to me that this space is used mostly as a hang-out area for people who either live nearby or maybe have no home? It's also used by pedestrians who are just passing through, and there were even what appeared to be some tourists taking artsy photos. (Or maybe they were doing a project for school or something??)

Collecting 50 things wasn't very difficult once I decided what to do--there were almost exactly 50 cars parked around the square. Buuut, the requirement of 50 did influence what I decided to collect. (I had considered other collections that involved interviewing people, making things there, etc.) Using my digital camera to collect the images of cars gave me a certain set of dimensions for my images, but I didn't really stick to those once I moved towards phase two. I would definitely say that weather was not really helping me with this project. It was so cold that I wasn't anxious to hang out there for a super long time. It was interesting seeing the park on one bleak day and one really sunny, beautiful day. I think I noticed more negative things when it was gross outside and felt a little better about the square when it was sunny.

i first went to moore square on a fairly nice day, yet it was still early enough to have a nice grey and dreary overtone. my first impression of the site was that it appeared fairly unremarkable and quasi-bland. there didnt seem to be enough interesting things to make me want to sit down and spend much time there of my own volition. (but i imagine it must be nice if youre constantly surrounded by buildings and city and concrete to spend time around grass and tress every now and then) having to collect 50 things forced me to move past my disinterest and look closely at all the small things in the square, and thats when i began to find things i liked about it. finding small beautiful things in an unassuming or even trashy place makes all those things even more so. i wanted to focus on the nice things of the park, the different colors, and ended up trying to collect all the colors that 'made up' the park atmosphere, and i ended up getting some cool pictures from even the drab deadish areas.
the first time i went it seemed that the people using the park were mostly going to and from work or business around the perimeter. when i went in the afternoon i saw more people walking their dogs or waiting to catch the bus or generally chillin. i only had one person talk to me but i didnt feel like it was an unfriendly atmosphere and never a dangerous one. but i always went during wellpopulated well-lit times.
finding fifty things was daunting at first but i think it led me into thinking more abstractly about the elements of the park and what all contributes to the overall atmosphere and experience.

My first impression of Moore Square was that it was a great attmept to create a green space in an urban area. This attempt was just that and nothing more. It was interesting to hear that this area is listed in travel guides as a place one must visit. It is far from that. It has too many garbage cans that aren't being used. The area looks and feels bare. The people that use the park just walk through it to get from one place to another. The only people that do spend time in Moore Square are the jobless/ homeless men (I noticed only men and no women). When I began to spend a little time there instead of just passing through like the majority of others, I felt a bit awkward because the space felt empty. I just kept walking around in circles trying to find something out of what appeared to be nothing. I visited Moore Square once at around lunchtime and a second time around 4:30 on Martin Luther King Day. It was amazing to see such a difference in the type of people who passed through. I felt very uncomfortable and slightly unsafe when I was there the second time. I decided to collect information about people passing through the space but came to realize that there was such a variety of people from day to day that it was unrealistic to make a project representing something that I couldn't accurately represent. Therefore, I chose random people and drew sketches of them. This allowed them to become less recognizeable. I also only showed snippets of these drawings in my video representing the short amount of time I actually got to view these people. When walking through the park it was difficult to really get to know these people, so I immediately started making assumptions about them. It was interesting to view what those assumptions were and comment on those personalities.

Here's some interesting research I came upon during this project:

"When Raleigh's grid was platted in 1792, the city fathers provided for five one-block-square parks symmetrically arrayed, with the one in the center reserved for the North Carolina capitol. Over the years, state government expanded to take over the two squares to the north. And in the past few decades, the other two--Nash Square and Moore Square--became homeless hangouts.

The city was not content to let the squares descend further into blight. In the 1980s, Raleigh set out to mimic the success of other cities' wastelands-turned-cultural-centers by sponsoring the Moore Square Arts District. That effort largely fizzled. But Moore Square is hardly destitute. An Irish restaurant and a brew-pub are steady draws, and City Market, which Raleigh subsidized for years, is now in private hands and thriving. Antiques shops have moved into some of the storefronts along the park's western edge. But the Salvation Army and the Raleigh Rescue Mission, which anchor the east side of the park and serve much of the square's transient population, have vexed the city's urban visionaries."

from The Metropolis Observed: Educating Raleigh found at:
http://www.metropolismag.com/html/content_0598/ma98rale.htm

**This article mostly focuses on Gordon Smith III, who dreamed up the idea of Exploris, and also worked to better the surrounding neighborhood areas by purchasing the adjoining church and buying property that is now used for middle schools and other educational needs.

I went to visit Moore Square on a Tuesday around rush hour, and it was a cool, overcast evening. It got dark by the time I left, and I felt the weather and atmosphere were gloomy and depressing. At first I wanted to take photos with the remaining light, but I put my camera equipment and my purse away when I saw all the panhandlers out harrassing businesspeople. I didn't worry about being mugged or anything, but I didn't want anyone to walk up to me or bother me. That's a personal thing I think; I just don't like to be approached by strangers. Overall, I thought the square in winter, in the evening, was much less pleaseant than when I had been there once before to go to Exploris in the summer. I missed the flowers and plants and thought it looked dirtier.

I started picking up trash partially because I had decided not to use the camera, but mostly as a response to what we saw in the Candy Jernigan book. I am fascinated by how putting trash in a nicer context makes it look like something worthwhile, too. In high school I studied Josef Albers series "Homage to the Square," which explores how colors appear when adjacent to other colors: how the context a color is in changes your perception of it. Putting the trash on a pleasant background makes you look at all the little details in it, and it can actually be beautiful, even though it was neither designed nor used for that quality.

The parameters of the project left me free to just pick up trash with no thought about how to do it. I concerned myself with finding 50 things and just did that in the area where I felt most comfortable, near my car on the Martin Street side. I found them quickly enough and left after less than an hour. I had brought a plastic sandwich bag and put everything into the same bag to be examined later.