Art from Text

Our latest project in CFC was really interesting. We each found an image of some artwork from the 20th century with a emphasis on the human condition (what ever that means....) and we then described it with one page of words. We were supposed to be as vague as possible with our description, and just describe the feelings the work exuded with out saying what exactly is on the work. I found some painting of an execution. I was really vague with the description and pretty much told the girl who got mine that one party held absolute power over the other. She made a 12 foot tall spaceship/phallic symbol with a light box and picture of a womans face. It was the robotic-sexual revolution/sexual enslavement of the humans. I guess that's absolute power in a way. Anyway...

I got a description that told me all about what was there, but not the feelings exuded from it. I started to latch on to a part of the description that said that there was "a name" and a "month, day, year". I liked how anonymous this was and was pretty much the entire catalyst for my entire project. Also there was a description of what seemed to me to be bars like crossing the painting (it was a painting that was described, I forgot to say that) and how they pulled your eyes in a clockwise way around the painting.

I posted some pictures of my sketchbook below. The lower the pictures the later the sketch.

In the top sketch (my first) it's pretty much the literal sketch of what was described. No content, form, or context or anything like that yet.
The second sketch was the first with the arrows, my tongue in check way to lead the viewers eye around my piece. Setting up the basic building block of my project here.

In this series of half finished sketches, I started experimenting with maybe cutting the person up in squares. Picking squares was a happy accident. It's looking more like the building blocks of my project now, but concept and context are a very long way off. I know, I can't sketch people very well. You'll have to deal with my disability just like I do everyday.

This sketch where it really started to click. It is the basic overview of what the project would look like, each square represents a building block part with an individual and a famous person (more on that below) and the A Name and Month, Date, Year over the whole thing.

I had made an experimental image with Illustrator of cutting an anonymous person up into the blocks with another anonymous person, I used a picture I had with me of Kara and what I thought was a random picture of a man from Google images. I showed John Marshall the print and he sent me towards this sketch and all my concept and context because apparently the man I had found was Robert Mapplethorpe, a rather controversial artist. He had no idea who Kara was, but knew who this other guy was. It was the exact opposite for me.

It got me thinking about anonymity and the individual. Thinking about individuals got me thinking about how we are all individuals in our own way, but as we individualize ourselves from one group, we put ourselves into another group that has similar qualities.

Combining the two thoughts I started asking people (roommates, friends, fiancee) to name one famous individual that they could immediately recognize by their face. I only told them it was for a project on the individual I was doing. I got responses ranging from Bill Clinton to Justin Timberlake and to Malcom X. I then digitally put them and their celebrity of choice together in one of the template building blocks of A NAME, the arrows, and Month, Day, Year. I then arranged these around the edges of foam core board. Over the whole piece I added another layer of a larger A NAME, Month, Day, Year, and arrows. This covering layer was the group. Every individual was part of a individual group together on the board. All this thought happened over about 20 minutes. A week and half of sketching culminated in one happy accident and a hell of a

Below is the finished, presented work. Starting from the top middle and working clockwise, the famous individuals (you don't get to know who the anonymous individuals are, that would defeat the purpose!).

Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, Bill Clinton, Malcolm X, Einstein, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Angelina Jolie, and George Bush.

Probably the most important part for the viewer is the mirror in the middle. I cut out a template square cut blocks, arrows and the text and glued it over the mirror. I did this specifically to engage the viewer, they could literally see themselves in the piece. I did this because sometimes when I'm trying to understand a piece of work and I need to first take a leap of faith to understand the work and immerse myself into it, I have a hard time doing so.
I reversed the order of a viewer working their way through a piece and directly brought their face into the picture along with the other anonymous individuals. Your face would only be there for as long as you stood at the piece, and would be replaced by the next anonymous individual. I wanted to make it a bit easier for the viewer to "get it".

I presented it the work yesterday, I think it went over pretty well in my critique and I'm really happy with the work. I wish I had spent a bit more time professionally putting the physical piece together. Also, I should have made it bigger to make it less busy. Instead of 8.5" X 11" individual prints making up the image use 10" X 15" or something like that. Then the over all piece would be bigger and the black text and arrows would be a bit more spaced out. I also wish I had a bigger mirror to cover the entire middle (that one is from a hand held mirror that I had to take apart). But overall, I'm happy with the piece.

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In an unrelated note, I wore my new vest today over a button up shirt. I'm feeling very confident in how I look right now. All secure in my fancy vest.