Thurgood Marshall Memorial Statue is located at Lawyer’s Mall, Maryland State House in Annapolis, MD. (At the time of this post, the statue is temporarily located at the Court of Appeals Building.)
- Music Video Created by Katherine Barnett (beatnikblends)
- Song in video: Morph by Soft and Furious
I have a funny story about this design. It’s another long post so grab a cup of green tea…
I was in the historic district near the State Capitol building looking for the Thurgood Marshall memorial. I saw pictures online of the statue and I thought it would be perfect for a design in this travel series. It was one of the few places that I definitely wanted to visit in the short time I had to plan and visit Annapolis. Well… I must have walked around the State Capitol for at least 20 to 30 minutes searching for this statue. My phone was dying at the time and I went online to try to find comments or anything to help me locate this statue. I gave up once I saw I was close to 20 percent on my phone and it was close to the time I wanted to check in the hotel. Plus… there were other places I needed to visit before heading to the hotel. I noticed I was near the visitors center and thought to stop by and see if someone can direct me to where this statue was located. Thankfully I did visit the center because I was told that the statue was relocated due to construction downtown. Unfortunately, it wasn’t nearby and I had to walk another 15 minutes to the Court of Appeals where the statue was located. Honestly, it upset me slightly at the time because I thought the original location was perfect for a design. I didn’t want to use my car to drive there because I was in a parking lot and I wasn’t sure if I could get back in the lot once I left. It was almost full when I first arrived in Annapolis. It was a nice walk and the weather was beautiful but I have been walking for a while and was starting to feel tired. I thought at the time, I am not leaving without that photo so I continue my walk. Once I arrived at the Court of Appeals, the statue was centered in front of the building and I was able to get a lot of good shots. I definitely have to look at the finer details when traveling. If you listened to my podcast or viewed Towne Centre you know this was a very spontaneous trip. I drove by the Court of Appeals on my way to the parking lot. If I knew beforehand the statue was relocated, it would have saved me some time.
I took a strange turn making this design. I had a completely different idea before I started this design. The visuals were clear. Lots of blue and brown, white stripes, something kind of similar to lighthouse but different. I had a moment in this design where I thought this is strange. Something feels incomplete about this design but complete as well. I never made anything close to this before. The colors are different. I get an outer space vibe. I love when color takes me in another direction and I do love this design, very much. I clearly see the Thurgood statue but I’ve been working on this design for several hours so I think it would be easier for me to see and probably not from an outside perspective. Imagine just one moment in time when you are engulfed in a moment that looks just like this. The colors become part of reality and you are walking in it. Or perhaps this moment is trapped in freeze frame and it’s a moment in time on display that changes in colors slightly as time flows by. Or maybe I’m just completely out of my mind. I added the original photo in this post so you can see the true starting point in this design.
The music video… It was a complete mess from the beginning. I noticed the video quality was just awful at some points. All my video settings are correct. At first, I thought it was the new software program I was using to speed up my videos. When I realized that wasn’t the problem, I went back to the original footage I recorded and the problem was found there. I don’t know if it’s the computer I am using or if the program doesn’t like a new texture I’m using. The texture doesn’t display well in the video but the design looks perfect and smooth. It’s a great texture. You can tell by the thumbnail how different it looks compared to how it’s shown in the video while recording. The intro and outro show the finished design and it looks different from the video itself. Every speed art video shows a live recording of me making the design from start to finish. I can perhaps take more breaks and go back to see how the program is recording my work and make adjustments. These videos are truly a challenge for me. I do feel a certain level of frustration but I just love this so much. It’s a strange feeling. I think the culprit in all my problems is my graphics card. I need a computer that can handle what I want to do without going nuts or have low resolutions. I need a serious upgrade in my equipment. I also noticed that I was missing a good chunk of video footage I recorded at the beginning. You don’t see how I changed the original abstract drawing or photo of the Thurgood Marshall statue. I do apologize but when I realized this I thought at the time should I start all over again or keep going. I decided since the video quality is going to compromised then it would be best to keep going. I tried my best to create something good despite the issues. I didn’t want to abandon all the work I put in already.
I want this album to be completely experimental and different when it comes to designs and music videos. I had an idea to play a bit of ping pong with the live recording and I love how it looks in the video. I hope the animations would help make the video better than the visual quality. My favorite part in the video (other than the ping pong sequence) is the sequence that starts from 1:01 to 1:13. It took some time to sync the beats with the effects and I think it looks good. I love seeing how everything comes together at the end and it makes all the frustration worth it! I can’t wait to start working on the next design. I am so thankful to have a chance to work with the memorial statue for Thurgood Marshall and to have a chance to continue this travel series. If you got this far in the post, thanks so much for reading about this design and watching my music video.