Associations of Properties

According to Mary Stewart in Launching the Imagination, "Every material has unique psychological associations as well as physical properties . . . [no matter the design] materials have meaning" (258). I feel that this is a true statement because the viewer of the art is supposed to assume that everything the artist did within their work was intentional. I feel as though this must be true for everything-- for example, this idea is not limited to installations or sculptures. When someone uses tools as simple as say, a pencil and paper, one can associate the properties of graphite with the earth and naturalness since it is composed of the natural element carbon, and paper also with the sense of naturalness since it is derived from trees. Or the graphite can take on a different meanings due to its metallic color that could signify coldness, hardness, or even outer space. The paper can also be made of cloth that signifies many different ideas for example, "to conceal" much like our clothes conceal our bodies or virtually anything that one may think of when they hear the word cloth. It is also important to keep the subject matter of the art in mind, in order to detect what the author intended to tell their viewer with their media choices.

Veteran's Day | Light

In honor of Veteran's Day, I'd like to make this post about the Marine Corps Memorial located in Washington DC. I visited this Memorial as well as others on Veteran's day in 2010. What I remember most about this particular Memorial was how it looked in the dark. As it turns out, it was one of the last Memorials we visited that day, and we were headed for our hotel just after we visited the Memorial. Evidently, the way the directed light was cast upon the soldiers showed that the people who designed the Memorial wanted to make the work, "spatially rich" by using specific light placement, as defined in Mary Stewart's textbook, Launching the Imagination (206-10). In this photo, taken by photographer James Seith, it is apparent that the light is cast up from the ground to illuminate the men from their feet. This allows the viewer to see the texture in the sculpture, but it also contains symbolic value. Light from the ground, regardless of if it originates from different angles upward around the Memorial, reminds the viewer that strength comes from deep down within us, and that despite the war within the world, America can unite and raise up (shown by the men also raising the flag as a team) as the light rises to illuminate their faces.

Colored Chairs

I really liked what Mary Stewart wrote in our textbook about color and the reactions that are evoked from certain colors. Following Stewart's explanation about red, yellow, and blue used on a Fisher-Price toy for children, she described a collection of chairs in Figure 9.63 (210). These chairs, made by Toshiyuki Kita, were an array of colored chairs that had different colored cushions that could be switched out to match any color of chair in the collection (210). When I saw the picture however, (before reading the description) I really felt as though some of the chairs could evoke an ominous feeling from the person about to sit on it, or even a happy feeling, or a disgusted feeling. The red chair with the black cushion seemed eerie, the pink chair with the red cushion could represent happiness, while the green chair with the yellow cushion didn't look so visually pleasing. Either way, if the chair's had different colored cushions than the ones described, then they would evoke a completely different feeling altogether. Amazing how chairs can be so thought provoking, and their colors, so intriguing.

A Comparison | A Freestanding Work is Also an Earthwork

After reading chapter nine in Mary Stewart's book titled, Launching the imagination | A Comprehensive Guide to Basic Design, I wondered which other degrees of dimensionality the, Spiral Jetty, made by Robert Smithson in Great Salt Lake Utah (shown in Figure 9.13) could possibly represent. The art by Smithson is described in the book as an earthwork because it ". . . is a large scale outdoor instillation" (Stewart 186). This artwork falls within this category because it, ". . . extends beyond the walls of a museum or gallery". I find that this description also identifies the Statue of Liberty. This statue takes up an abundance of space, so it is a large scale outdoor instillation and it also extends beyond the walls of a museum or gallery so it is technically an earthwork, but it can also be considered a freestanding work, because it is ". . . designed to be seen from all sides. . . [and the statue's positioning by raising the torch indicates motion which] bring[s] to life the inanimate [bronze]" (Stewart 184). So after this comparison, I wonder if some degrees of dimensionality may overlap for certain works.