Project One: Reflection Paper

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” — Mary Lou Cook

That statement is exactly why I am so intrigued by my own creativity. I always challenge myself to come up with ideas that may or may not turn out the way I want them to. No matter what, I always learn from each experience and can better prepare myself by growing from my mistakes. Sometimes, mistakes turn out to be beautiful and that is a very important part of creativity. Masterpieces can come from taking risks and enjoying any project. This sparks a great interest within me with the design field, and more specifically, interior design.

When I was assigned the “Anything But A Box” project, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach it. Although I am very attracted to abstract objects, I chose to design something that related to something very important to me. I decided to build a softball field, because softball is a huge part in my life and has had the largest impact on me. In my eyes, a softball field is a sacred place, and it is where some of my biggest dreams have come true.

I began this project with a box that’s base was approximately 10”x14” and was about 8” in height. My first task was in creating an infield and outfield that fit together in the shape of a typical softball field. In this process and throughout the rest of the assignment, I used a hot glue gun and my exacto blade to get the results I had desired. My next task was to make the base 3-dimensional by adding a fence around the field.

In addition, I added bases, foul lines, a pitcher’s mound and home plate to complete the design on the infield. I continued by building dugouts for each side of the field, which was challenging to get each piece to fit together how I had wanted. Another hard challenge was creating a backstop behind home plate that curved at the top to resemble a real life backstop. The cardboard was hard to curve, but I was able to manipulate it best I could to get the effect I needed.

For my final touches, I included a scoreboard, foul posts, and a quote in the outfield. Since softball has had such purpose and meaning in my life, the quote “where dreams come true” that I placed on the field relates myself to softball very successfully. I was very satisfied with the outcome of my project. I have learned that a simple cubic box can be manipulated and turned into anything one wishes to turn it into. I had a lot of fun creating something that I thought would be different than many others projects. If I could change anything, I wish that I had used a more flexible and thinner cardboard to get a cleaner looking final outcome. I feel as if this would allow me to add more detail to the field also. In conclusion, I think this project was successful and I am happy with my final outcome.