Artist Statement and Final Image

As I sit down to begin thinking about this narrative project, I'm struck by how completely unsure I am.  The ways in which I can manipulate imagery, the images themselves that I can use, and a narrative of some form are all variables that I have yet to pin down.  My favorite projects were Micro4 and Micro5, if I could figure out some way to incorporate those then that would be excellent.  Not really sure how to turn that into a narrative though.

Finally figured out how to tell a story, although I should add that I THINK I know how to share a narrative with the class. The first way would be to tell the educational story of myself, and twist it to end up as starving college student ends up with superpower and changes the world as in Micro5.  The other would be to show the 'life' of an engine.  Take photos of a block or powertrain at various stages in the production and work cycle to portray just what it is that these man-made steel hearts are capable of.  The more I type the more I prefer this over the first option.


I found the conclusive inspiration for my final project in a rather unlikely place, the a letter adorning the side of a Yuengling can.  As the letter from Dick Yuengling (President of the company) went on to discuss the tradition and history of the company, it struck me that prior to Art252 I had no real experience with image editing whatsoever.  Therefore, all my work is a sort of history of my growth and accomplishments.... not that I will be dethroning DaVinci anytime in the near future.

Having a concrete idea of what the main thought of my final project is, I began to try and decide how to represent this 'history' that I know have.  Originally I planned on using sections and images out of each piece as links back to the piece as a whole.  However, I began to play around with GIMP and found that utilizing a whole canvas to show the pieces in their entirety looked infinitely better and didn't require any massive previous knowledge to comprehend.

To conclude, I sought to manipulate the images to show not only progression and differentiation between the images, but to also convey the journey of my work.  I began with a simple photo of my hand, followed by projects 2 and 3 which I judged to be more of a demonstration of my technical abilities.  Project 4 was where I felt like I started to feel comfortable enough with the software that I could venture in expressing myself.  This was done through to differing perspectives of my place on campus and how no one could see it like I do.  Project 5 was just plain fun.  I always wanted to make some poster like this and never had the knowledge or tools to do so.  With permission from the instructor to be as corny as I saw necessary, I attempted to be as straight up as possible and flirt with the absurd and completely nonsensical; I believe I succeeded.  The final project was in contrast to Micro5 in that I was an interpretation of a random object and was entirely personal.  Ridicule from my interpretation was impossible as no one could ever see it like I do because they are not me, even if we were to sit down and vocalize the same thoughts word for word.

The connect-a-dot overlay to this image was not at all planned.  As I leaned back and looked at the tornado in the background sort of blending into the motion blur of the images, it struck me that to anyone else there's no logical linkage or order between this images.  Thoughts of the old backseat road trip game from my child years came to mind; seemed straightforward and readily understood so I utilized it.  This was easily the most difficult project due to the lack of guidelines - aside from the order to stay out of jail - but I enjoyed it.  It has become a showcase through narrative for a full 10 weeks of my thoughts and work.