We started off with an object of our choosing, and the assignment: take pictures of the object, create a list and do a line drawing. This seemed easy enough. I am not the biggest fan of drawing, but I like to think that I am better than average bear at photography (it helps that I have thumbs and not claws). My drawing didn't turn out too poorly, and I really enjoyed giving it some color.
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The next assignment was to make a major change to our objects. My lamp had morphed so much already. The more I had thought about it, the darker the object seemed to become for me (oh, the irony). Here I am, sitting in front of a blinding light, and all I can think about is the darkness behind it. Had I been better with shadows and math, I would have loved to attempt a piece centered around the playfulness of light and dark. After a little experimentation, I found that it was much more difficulty than I wanted to deal with during the school year. Instead, I disassembled it, and came up with this guy, struggling to keep the light around him:
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But how to use the rest of it? I love LOVED what I had done, but it didn't feel complete for the assignment given. So I did it. I broke the lamp. After much thought and experimentation on how to incorporate it, I tried to depict two scenes, both about the struggle to keep the lamp and the brightness alive.
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Then - another obstacle. As I was setting my object up for display, I reread the criteria and realized I had to incorporate the words from the list, along with the drawings and photographs into my piece. GAH! I wish I could just go back to the one little guy, pulling up the light. But I trudged forward into the battleground and did my best. After many attempts, I can say, though not perfect by any means, my assignment was well done.
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Oh dear....you say, "Now, all disassembled and in my room, it doesn't seem like all the work I put in really came to all that much. So art goes."
ReplyDeleteThis sounds so sad and anticlimatic. Truly, you came to a strong solution and now you can also reflect on what you hopefully learned about yourself and making art and composition and creativity, etc....AND, you can use the part of the project you liked the best as a sculpture unto itself - the little wire person pulling up the light - wrestling to keep the light alive! Now there's a metaphor for you!
So, for what it is worth - I think you may have more to show for this project than you give credit to.
But, that also begs the question about what comes of art in the end? Well, everything turns to dust over time no matter what we do. If we make something that we love, we keep it alive by living with it and looking at it regularly. If we give it to others, they get this pleasure from art. If we put art in a box under our bed, it remains as memory only. But you know what, most of the great art we see in our lives ultimately exist in our memory....unless we are vastly wealthy and can buy what we love. Otherwise we go to museums or we just remember the time we saw something we can't get back to. I still remember the first time I saw Michelangelo's David in Florence!
How true all of this is! Ashes to ashes, dust to dust...this is the way it has been and will always be.
ReplyDelete...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Genesis 3:19