Second Week Readings..

Big Ideas and Artmaking

While reading the passage from Big Ideas and Artmaking, I saw a connection between this article and the article we read last week. They both discussed ideas behind rules. In this passage we looked how art can break rules. While reading about Jennifer Barlett, we discovered her artistic journey as she took herself away from her comfort zone in New York City, and moved to Nice. Living in a French villa she found inspiration while staring out her gloomy window and seeing her run down garden. She established the rules she was going to use with her art, and she decided to find ways to break her own rules. This made me think about what rules I break everyday. The rules I break day to day aren’t ones that are going to harm society, they aren’t ones that I could even get punished for, and they are rules that usually get slide under the rug. I wondered how I would break rules with my art, and it made me feel excited. Another topic we learned during this passage that I thought was proving was the idea behind distinguishing between an artists subject matter and bid idea. I learned how it is important that the big idea provides the conceptual thought, as the context for examining the big idea

This weeks reading was more straightforward about the ideas it was trying to get across, however I did still have some concerns after I completed it. I wondered if art always had to have a big picture or a theme. Does every piece need to have a meaning, and what about those pieces of art that want you to put your own meaning to the work.  I questioned how the artist’s expression and the viewer’s opinion and interpretation could work together to create an overall cohesive theme or big picture. I know when I go to an art gallery I always ask myself what do I think the artists is trying to depict, however after reading this I realized that the meaning is much more deep than the images that are on the canvas.

Interpreting Visual Culture

As I read through this week’s second reading, I found this passage long and strenuous. I felt like it took a long time to develop its point and it wasn’t until the end that I finally was able to think about what I was reading. The way society interprets and associates images in our society today has a major effect on our decisions. This is very apparent within my major here at OSU. Being in fashion, I learn how it is the clothes we wear that sheds light into that persons specific personality and style, however people have different way of interrupting just what that means. For instance if someone is wearing the color pink, people usually associate this color with being feminine and girly, however the person wearing that outfit might have a different association with their color choice such as it being bright and different. This was seen in this article with the different media examples. This reading made me think how everyone sees art differently and how someone can see one image and have it mean one thing to them, and someone else could see the same image and it mean something completely different.

Overall I did have some concerns or issue with this reading. Besides thinking it didn’t do a great job of getting to the point, I also didn’t like the lay out of the passages; I found it confusing and really made the overall flow of the passage choppy. I don’t agree with the final conclusion that claims how it is immensely important that we interpret the images and designed objects with which we live, because I think that sometimes things could be left undefined.