Abstractions

     The assignment was to use black paper shapes on a white board to convey, for lack of a better term, art. Feeling, impression, narrative, conflict, something internal to us and conveyed by construction paper. I wanted no part of it. I wanted to overcome technical and creative challenges and come up with a cool image, I had no care for storytelling. Eye of the beholder, right? What difference does the story of the artist make beyond whatever extra credit is available for the deconstruction you’re writing?

     So I did my thing, cut out a larger canvas than anyone else was going with, and started sketching out broad arcing strokes across the page. Working out composition and the more complex overlaps on the fly, not a single worthwhile story in mind.

     On crit day, I wasn’t listening too closely to the other stories. Honestly didn’t care about most of them. Besides, I was busy making up the story I was supposed to’ve had in mind the entire time. I wound up describing to the class what they already knew; that geometrically, sharp angles represent tension, right angles are stability, and circles are people. The large concentric circles on the left are an adult, with a complex life that’s affected to varying degrees by the different problems and reassurances in their world. The vertical bars are the daily routine, the steady structures we use to ground ourselves; I made it sound like their resemblance to prison bars was intentional just to show off. The disjointed circle on the right is a lost cause. No longer holding it together, his connection to the world is as tenuous as the inconsistent interaction here between circle/square/triangle. The pressures don’t really get to him any more, but nor does the familiar offer comfort. The small circle at the bottom is a child, with less of such complexity; or perhaps a clock, counting down on the poor bastard to the left.

     The class bought it, the professor bought it, I’d successfully scammed to the spirit of the assignment by having the picture come up with its own gd story. THEN the professor turned my cleverness right back on me. She threw out the whole story and said, “Y’know what? I think it would look better on its side.”

     And she was right. It does look better turned. The story completely falls apart in portrait mode, unless you want to account for the vertical by saying the big circle (now) up high is Jesus….the (now) horizontal stripes no longer work as bars, they can be representative of the good life. The steps you take on the righteous path, the (hey, horizontal stripes!) ladder rungs up to (see how this works?) salvation. Triangles become sin, of course. By chance the clock is no longer so close to midnight, fortunate for the toddler its tattooed upon. I’ve kept it on its side ever since, when I turned a copy for this post it looks like a complete mess. I look at the top of this screen and cringe.

     So my cool image, with the “integral” narrative, had the narrative thrown out by the prof in favor of making it a cooler image. It’s original coolness was exposed as shit, but better coolness was found in the exact same image. And the picture still writes its own story. Weird how her one suggestion almost made it a 50/50 collaboration.