When I view artwork, I always try to find a deeper meaning. But there isn’t always an implied meaning for artwork and that is what I discovered recently. For some reason, I always try to dig deeper into artworks, my brain automatically tries to find a deeper meaning, an underlying message or hidden symbols within the artwork itself. However, while making art, I don’t think about these aspects during the creation process and I found this rather interesting. While reading some of my classmate’s blog posts, I found Melisha- Li Gatlin’s most recent post very intriguing and helped answer my thought.
She says, “When I look at art, I assume that the piece in front of me is the initial message the artist intended for the audience. Now, I am starting to realize that some art can simply be a beautiful mistake. By beautiful mistake I am referring to obstacles the artists face during the process that turn out to make the piece into something the artist had not imagined. Another assumption I make is that there is a deep-rooted meeting behind each piece of art. This assumption was proved wrong throughout the exercise as my group and I started putting colors together just for fun”
I started drafting this blog post a couple hours before Prince gave his “Kitchen Talk”, which opened my eyes to the other side of the creation process- deliberate symbols and deeper meanings embedded in artwork. But some artists don’t use this technique when creating their artwork, which is something I had never considered.
While reading and thinking about Melisha’s post, I realized I also was too only thinking about the final product of artwork and the messages included in those artworks but was not thinking about the creation process that goes into making a final product. During Garth Freeman’s class, I realized that artists sometimes don’t have a deliberate meaning for their pieces of artwork and merely create it because they liked it. When the class split up into groups to create a piece of art, my group instead of thinking about a final product in our minds and being disappointed by our product because it was not exactly how we had envisioned, we played with color combinations and various textures. Because we were creating as we went, the act of making the artwork became more fun and relaxing, rather than tedious and trying to strive for perfection.
In high school, I took various art classes among various mediums throughout my years there. My photo class was the one I really enjoyed and was simple for me. Sometimes I do photograph certain things to send a message, but most of the time, I merely take pictures because what is in front of me looks interesting, not with a certain message or meaning in mind. Pottery was also enjoyable for me, but the best part of that creation process was the glazing process. I mixed colored glazes together and when fired, they always would turn out surprisingly pretty and vibrant. I never knew if the colors would work together, so going to class on the days I could see what my pieces looked like was like walking down the stairs Christmas morning. However, in a class like charcoal drawing, painting, pottery and portraiture, I struggled because I was so driven on the final product, I got frustrated in the creation process because I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted the product to look like.
Prince does the exact opposite of how I create most of my photo pieces. While creating his artwork, he thinks about symbols that represent either things in his own life or things in history and includes them into his work. Prince creates his work with a distinct image or message in mind, but if an artist doesn’t use this method, it doesn’t mean its not a