Friday, December 7, 2012

Summary


Summary 

From my Research I have discovered several things. I really enjoyed all of Andrea Zittel’s works. I had originally picked her for two reasons. One, her name was also Andrea, and two I saw some of the furniture that she has created and really liked it. I respect the fact that she does her artwork in order to better the world and make it more useful. She attempts to make living every day life easier by her creations. She is also a very accomplished artist as well. She has been a part of over a hundred exhibits and won several awards.
What I have found is that her main focus is on A-Z West and A-Z East. A-Z West is located on thirty-five acres in the California high desert next to Joshua Tree National Park.  Since it's inception in fall 2000, A-Z West has been undergoing an ongoing conversion into our testing grounds for "A-Z designs for living". Current structures and projects include our two original homestead cabins that serve as Zittel's primary residence and guest house, a studio/shop facility, a shipping container compound, Regenerating Field, and the Wagon Station Encampment.  This desert region originally appealed to Zittel because it seemed that one could "do anything here" - which she later learned isn't exactly true! (For more about this read about the AZ Homestead Unit and the AZ Wagon Stations).
A-Z West is also the historical site of the five-acre Homestead Act. In the 1940s and 50s legislation gave people 5 acres of land for free if they could improve it by building a minimal structure. The result is a seemingly infinite grid system of dirt roads that cuts up a very beautiful desert region. In the middle of each perfect square of land is a tiny shack - most of them long since abandoned. The area and its history represent a very poignant clash of human idealism, the harshness of the desert climate and the vast distances that it places in between people.  
The AZ Enterprise first took root in 1991 in a tiny 200 square foot storefront on South 8th Street in Brooklyn New York.  In January of 1994 the project migrated to a small three story row house with a ground level storefront at 150 Wythe Avenue. Wares and prototypes rotated in and out of the space as Zittel’s experiments evolved, the storefront serving as both a showroom and a test site.  In 1996 and 1997 the A- Z Personal Presentation Room opened to the public for Thursday Evening Personal Presentations at A-Z East. These cocktail parties facilitated socialization amongst Zittel’s Brooklyn community of artists and neighbors, alleviating the absence of intimacy and familiarity in metropolitan life. 
Earlier in the twentieth century, the Wythe Avenue space had served as a storefront business with a home upstairs that sheltered three generations. An awareness of this history led Zittel to conceive of the space as an arena of both professional and personal interactions, where the sleeping arrangements and furniture (A-Z Bofa, Ottoman Furniture, Pit Bed, and Platform Bed, among others she designed) would inspire socialization as well as private retreat. 
The sense of community fostered among the participants in the A-Z lifestyle experiments and gatherings spurred the creation of the A-Z Personal Profiles Newsletter (1996-1997). Zittel invited those who used her furniture to provide testimonials in this newsletter and also profiled new retypes in development. The expanded following of A-Z East, fueled solutions to the new problems created by this ongoing social activity.  
Her fascination with furniture has inspired her to create several interesting pieces for everyday use that can be found at both of these sites. 

http://www.zittel.org/az-east.php?a_id=4
http://www.zittel.org/az-west.php?a_id=3

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