Sunday, February 14, 2010

Project 1 - turning something ordinary into something extraordinary


For this project, I tried to think of the most ordinary place that I go on a regular basis. That place is my desk. I sat down in my swirly chair and took a spin. I took photos of the things surrounding me, and came out with three photos that particularly caught my interest. I chose a photo of a bobble-head, a photo of the dial on my record player, and a photo of some hand written text. I think all of these items that I took pictures of say something about me. All of these things are at my desk for a reason. I am very interested in the things I own and like to analyze why I own them. Domestic and homey things around me often become subject matter in my drawings, and I think this will continue. I love still life's. Most would find them boring, but objects have so much more meaning to them than people realize. I always think about where the object came from and why someone owns it - does it have meaning to the owner? This concept has always caught my interest.

During the critique, there were a lot of mixed opinions about this piece. Some stated that it reminded them of the Cold War or something Russian in nature. This is not at all what I was going for, though it is an interesting thought and I now see how they could draw that conclusion. Some said the text should have been left out. Some said it was working. Some said that the text should have been treated differently altogether. I was told that the mark-making of the objects in the background was nice and that the writing takes away from this. Now that I look at the unfinished version with no text, I like it better. I do wish I would have left the objects alone, however, this was a good learning experience. The next time I consider adding text to a drawing, I will need to think more about the outcome and how the piece is working at its present state.