Blog 3

            After reading the Walker article, I have noticed that rules seems to be a common theme for artists to write about. The big idea, which is different than an artist’s style, is the theme that drives a work of art. And when creating this big idea, rules can be broken. Art is the representation of imagination, and there is no limit or rules with imagination. However, the point of this piece is that artists shouldn’t just slap whatever they think up onto a canvas, though sometimes this works its not the best plan. The best artists have a vision and a plan of execution.

            Although this wasn’t the most entertaining article I’ve ever read, it also became quite repetitive. It seemed to be dancing around the question of the big idea. I also may have had an issue reading this because of its format. Being in a textbook style, it was a bit distracting with many side notes and pictures going on. Overall, the most interesting part of this article was reading about the different artist and sculptors like Jennifer Barlett, who took the challenge of rules and demonstrated that planning and not plan works of art can both be successful.

            I found this article by Barrett much more interesting in the way it presented denotation and connotation. Though it is not difficult to analyze something and pick out the details that imply a certain topic, I found it quite interesting that people of all ages noticed different things about a piece or topic. I guess it also never really occurred to me that the knowledge that we collect from all these images and objects, whether we know we do it or not, makes up our opinion of the culture we live in.

            I liked how the article explored different ages groups and their opinions on a variety of topics, but I also feel that Barrett could have gone much further with his research, perhaps gender or race. Barrett however did mention race, but only briefly. He challenged our culture by stating that we label African-Americans. This I agree with, I do think it will still take many more years to change this. However we are moving in the right direction, with a recently reelected black president. Since this article was written in 2003, I think it would be quite entertaining to hear Barrett’s opinion on our country now.