WP3: Pre-Write 4

Fragment X-O was created by Juan Hamilton, who was born in 1945. He began his career as a potter and worked largely with clay. His career was furthered by his interaction with Georgia O’Keefe. As a classic American artist, she painted masterpieces that have a simple, yet sensuous feel to them and she used bold shapes and colors. Hamilton actually lived with her as a confidant and caretaker in the later years of her life after the death of her husband until her own death in 1986. His close interaction with O’Keefe and his origins as a potter likely influenced the creation of Fragment in the fluid lines and smooth construction. It seems as though he took the same approach to working with the bronze of this sculpture as to working with clay when potting. The influence of O’Keefe is reflected in the boldness of the shape and the soft, simple lines created within the “O”.

Hamilton’s art was also influenced by Zen Buddhism. He first encountered this fresh world view on a trip to Japan in 1970. He worked to capture the philosophy and aesthetics of this religion in his sculptures. His abstract forms developed out of this fascination and he has said that “they come from inside me. I feel them three-dimensionally in the center of my chest.” This sculpture is also perhaps a representation of the innermost portions of the body from Hamilton’s perspective.

Much of Hamilton’s art is also related to Fragment. His sculptures tend to be created from the same bronze metal and have similar smooth edges. He also has a trend of creating circular forms similar to Fragment. These purely abstract forms all share smooth, dark forms that reflect light and interact with their environment in specific yet very different ways, whether it be in the outside world or inside a museum filled with artificial light. However, despite these similarities the most distinct difference that is in the titling of Fragment. This title captures the audience and makes them take a closer look at the seemingly simple form before them. While the other titles of his pieces are descriptive and informative, like Portrait #2 or Curve and Shadow #2, the title of this large circle is not necessarily informative but thought provoking and beckons as many questions as the sculpture is large.

This piece, Fragment, stands out among Hamilton’s sculptures not only in shape and size, but also in the name. However, this piece also shares many similarities to these other pieces that helps to further the understanding of the origins of this piece in relationship to the artist.

WP3: Pre-Write 3

A few of the most interesting aspects of Fragment X-O by Juan Hamilton are its overall structure and placement in the world. This sculpture is located among many other sculptures in a garden purely meant for display, but there is something different about how this sculpture is situated that pulls the viewer in to examine it further.

This piece of art is most interesting because it can be viewed from many different angles and how this creates a sense of logos. Its location in an open environment in which the audience can move around and get as close to or far away from the sculpture as possible is what makes this viewing experience unique. Fragment looks different depending on which angle you are viewing it from. The front looks completely different from the back in the sharpness of the angles and the physical shape. The other interesting part about this piece is that the angle you are viewing the piece from alters what slice of life that you view through the center. The frame that is created by the sculpture highlights different aspects of the world around it and the placement of the viewer’s body in relationship to the sculpture alters how much is framed by the piece.

Also intertwined with the aspect of the sculpture that controls what you see through the hole, or what pieces that you see within it, is defined by its location within the sculpture garden. It is placed above the common viewing area separated from the sidewalk by grass. If the piece is viewed from the front, it partially frames Architecture Hall behind it, but when viewed from the backside it perfectly frames Sheldon Museum of Art. This intentional placement alters how the pathos of the viewer is affected as they look at the piece because of what they are also seeing behind it. As well, the sculpture is anchored to a large concrete slab that peaks above ground level. This slab gives an illusion of distance and creates a space in which the viewer is not allowed to get closer to the sculpture. This distance between the audience and the sculpture creates a lack of audience interaction that is contradicted by the piece’s life size and welcoming empty center. This works to create a sense of ethos so that the piece is respected as art and should not be touched or climbed on.

Another aspect of the sculpture that relates to visual pathos is the coloration of the art object. This piece is altered by the weather and as it is made of bronze this weathering alters the coloration. A gradient of color is created by this weathered effect that works to create an emotional response by the audience. The top of the sculpture has been weathered to create a greenish, matte patina, while on the other hand the bottom of the sculpture has retained its dark, shiny bronze coloration. The inside of the sculpture has taken on a red, rusty look very different from the outside of the piece. These colors work together to create a natural feeling that the piece is being incorporated by nature into its outside environment. This feeling invites the audience to touch and feel the material that is not felt in a museum environment. This interaction is not seen in many pieces because they are always viewed indoors and have a hands-off look about them, such as Curve and Shadow No. 2 also created by Hamilton.

Fragment X-O is full of contradictions and never looks the same from any angle. It is almost like looking at four different sculptures in one. This irregularity is created by its imperfections and natural-made feel.

WP3: Pre-Write 2

The sculpture Fragment X-O by Juan Hamilton appeals to an audience in a variety of ways. First of all, this piece of art appeals to a person’s pathos through its fluid structure and coloration to pull in the emotions of the viewer. This piece also uses logos and ethos to work with the audience to create an argument.

Pathos is the main rhetorical appeal at work. The fluid shape and soft edges of this object evoke a feeling of calmness. However, the dark hues of the bronze also works to induce questioning and mystery among the viewers. The interaction of this piece with the environment in which it is placed is also important to the overall feeling that it creates. The weather creates a distinct look to the piece. When the sun is shining off the bronze, the piece feels much more tranquil and at ease. On the other hand, when Fragment is shrouded in overcast skies or shadows it seems much more ominous and mysterious. These contradictions within the simplicity of the piece are also at work when looking at how it appeals to an audience’s logos.

The logos of the piece is mostly seen in its overall simplicity of shape and placement. It is placed within a simple patch of grass, free from the distractions of any other sculptures. Its large, oversize and dark shape makes it noticeable but also seemingly easy to comprehend. A visual hierarchy is also created by how the fluidity of Fragment contrasts with the sharp edges of the buildings and tree trunks surrounding it. It draws attention to itself by being one of the more circular shapes in the sculpture garden among the sharp edges of the other sculptures. As well, how the title of the piece interacts with the physical portion is important to logos. The title, Fragment X-O, directs the audience towards the emotional side of the piece due to their cultural background of associating X’s and O’s with kisses and hugs, respectively. The word “fragment” makes the audience wonder where the X is to this O, or if there even is one. This title works with the piece to explain what the artist was thinking about when he was creating the piece.

This consideration of what the artist was thinking about plays into how the ethos of the piece is portrayed to the audience. First of all, the polished look of the piece and its official placement in the sculpture garden among other famous pieces gives it credibility. Both of these aspects of the sculpture shows that the artist has experience with the material and allows the audience to trust the artist and what he is working to portray with the piece. The other feature of the piece that works to appeal to the audience’s ethos is how the sculpture focuses the attention beyond the piece itself into the world beyond. It works to frame life within the hole in the center. This focus tells us what the artist (and the installer) wanted us to see besides the piece itself.

All of these aspects of Fragment X-O work to portray an argument to its viewers and allows the piece to work beyond just being art, but also working as a communicator.

WP3: Pre-Write 1

I feel as I have had a lot of experience with different types of art. I come from a very artistic and art-interested family; my Dad was even an art major for a period of time in college. As well as my immediate family, many of my extended family is also interested in art forms. Further, many of my friends also share a passion for art, from drawing and painting to music. The love for numerous aspects of the art world in the people that surround me has pushed me towards growing appreciation for the arts as well.

Family is the main place that I experience art. Most family vacations include a trip to an art museum or gallery of some sort, no matter the destination. My dad is passionate about creating art as well as viewing other’s work. Two of my favorite museums are the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City. His passion for creating art has also caused me to become involved in the creation of my own. I’m not sure if what I create could necessarily be considered art, but I do like to create what my mom calls “functional art” in the form of pottery bowls and mugs. Others in my family are also artists, in the ‘functional’ sense (my grandpa and uncle are woodworkers). This forced assimilation into the art world on the part of my family has caused me to become appreciative of the innovation of those that can create masterpieces.

Many of my friends are also interested in art. Instead of going to museums and looking at other’s art, they like to create their own. I have several friends that are avid sketch-artists and painters. One of my good friends is also interested in art in the musical sense. She listens to all types of music from reggae to old-school jazz and is also involved in band and improv groups. Her passion for music has also allowed me to experience art in the audio sense.

Overall, I would say that I have a well-rounded experience with art objects. The more art that I am exposed to, the more appreciation I have for paintings from long ago to modern sculpture. I am excited for the experience to learn how to analyze art-objects on a deeper level.

WP2: Final Draft

Author's Note:

Comics are my favorite part of the Sunday newspaper. For this project, I chose a comic from one of my favorite comic artists, Dan Piraro creator of Bizarro. After learning how aesthetic and rhetorical techniques employed by the artist help to create an argument for everyday life through a combination of text and visual components, I have begun to look at what I once thought were created just for a good laugh.

After careful analysis of my comic and picking out the tools that aided the argument within the comic the most I was ready to begin my first draft. My rough draft was mostly a compilation of my ideas that lacked any real structure. After the first peer review, I was given some great comments from my peer reviewer to help further the ideas I had already presented on a local level. One of the ways that I worked to improve my first draft was to revisit the topics I had covered in the body of my essay, such as the rhetorical use of text, and as suggested by my peer reviewer, Sarah, add these topics to my thesis so that they were also covered in my introduction. In the body of my essay, I also looked at organization. I felt that some of my topics had been too grouped together, so I split several paragraphs up to create small paragraphs in which to focus on each device used in the comic. The two places that I made these divisions were in the paragraph about text and the paragraph that dealt with visual constraints. I wanted to see how creating small blocks of text with less ideas presented within them would work for the second draft. One of the smaller changes from the first to the second draft, but that I thought made some of the most difference was at the end of the conclusion. As suggested, again, by Sarah, “maybe instead of just asking the question [at the end of the paragraph], either before or after elaborate a little more on how it [misreading historical artifacts] is present in other aspects of our society”. She suggested including other places where our society had misread a text and developed it into some form of entertainment, such as The Davinci Code. Her suggestions on this part of my essay helped to enhance the “so what?” portion that is the ultimate question I was trying to answer. The first draft was very weak in this area, but her suggestions helped to tie this portion of the essay back in with the introductory paragraph.

There were many more changes that occurred between the second and final drafts. In my introduction, I made sure to again tamper with my thesis statement. As stated by my second peer reviewer, Amberley, “the whole thesis statement is a little long. Try to simplify this so that it is clear and concise!”. I felt the same way but was not sure exactly how to go about this change. With her help, I decided to make my one thesis statement into two sentences so that I could include all the information without loosing the meaning. The body of my second draft also went through several major revisions. After using smaller paragraphs in the second draft, I decided to return to the basic original structure. Some of the paragraph divisions I made for the second draft did not help to remove confusion, they only added to it. While completing this, I also made some major additions to each paragraph by expanding on each idea as suggested by Amberley, “I think just expanding on your subjects could really help…detail your essay a little more. You have a good foundation, just building it up a little will help!” This expansion helped to fully explain each idea and provide evidence to how each topic I touch upon helped to further the argument of the comic. After expanding on each topic individually, I was able to make some of the needed global changes in paragraph divisions. However, these divisions were based on necessity to help the reader break from one idea to the next instead of focusing on one part of an analysis in each paragraph.

Through every revision, as I was improving my essay, I also discovered that comics can contain more commentary than I thought possible. The superficial argument usually gives way to deeper meaning within the comic that is highly affected by how the artist manipulates the medium. This discovery has lead me to look at the comics page a little closer on Sunday mornings while flipping through the paper.

Draft 2

Draft 1

Statement of Purpose

Final Draft:

The apocalyptic movie has become a staple within the film making industry. Fans of this genre flock to the theatres to experience the thrill and the more realistic the drama, the better. But, the most successful of these movies are the ones that create a fictional narrative based on historic artifacts or events, such as the very real 2012 phenomenon that prompted the creation of the movie, 2012. This film is based on the fears that arose as people discovered that the Mayan calendar, created some three thousand years ago, ended on the Winter Solstice of the year 2012. This arbitrary end to such an influential and superstitious culture’s calendar caused people all over the world to develop their own hypothesis for why the calendar ended on such a date. The consensus was that the Mayans knew something would happen on that exact date centuries later, causing the world as we know it to cease to exist.

As well, the apocalyptic comic has also become a staple within the entertainment industry. Or rather these comics are just a commentary to the apocalyptic phenomenon that arose with the turn of the twenty-first century, Y2K. The always socially and culturally conscious, comic series, Bizarro, developed by Dan Piraro has come up with its own explanation for what has become known as the ‘2012 Phenomenon’. The aesthetic and rhetorical use of logos through text and visual constraints, as well as pathos through humor help to develop the argument (or explanation) created within the December 21, 2009 Bizarro comic. This argument is that as a society we misread and negate the material constraints of a text and instead lay our own narrative over that text that undermines the importance and original purpose for that specific communication, in this case the Mayan calendar.

The first part of the panel that is noticed when viewing the Bizarro comic is the text. The hierarchal arrangement of the dialogue bubbles in the top middle of the panel attracts the viewer’s attention. This attention-grabbing technique works “because we have learned to read from top to bottom and left to right.” (Wysocki and Lynch 287) The placement of the dialogue bubbles, one over the top of the other, and the direction of the communication between the characters, from left to right, also comes into play with the techniques of visual hierarchy. Another reason that the eye is first drawn towards the dialogue is because of the simplicity of this area of the comic. The stark contrast between the black text and the cream background creates a simple, but attention-grabbing use of logos within the frame of the comic. This hierarchal and aesthetic approach to logos speaks to how we could misread a text. With the placement of the text above the visual elements, the viewer could misread the dialogue especially because it is supposed to work in conjunction with the visual images. The text could also be misread because of an anomaly in language.

There are two main ways in which the text is incongruent with the visuals and the context in which the characters are portrayed. The first way in which the text differs from the drawings is in the language. Based on the drawings, the characters in the panel are supposed to be Mayans. But, the text is written in English. This use of the English language caters to an English-speaking audience of mostly Americans. If this comic were to be accurate, historically, they characters would not be speaking English, they would be speaking in the Mayan language. This use of a predominantly American language instead of a historically accurate one aids in the creation of the argument that historic events and artifacts are misunderstood in current culture. Another anomaly created in the text is the way in which the dialogue is written. By using the phrase “freak somebody out,” a modern dialect is created within the comic and the use of contemporary slang creates a universalizing effect. This inconsistency between the historic content of the image and the vernacular used in the text also furthers the argument that misunderstandings occur when present-day society creates their own interpretation for historical artifacts and does not take into account the culture from which that piece arose.

The argument of the comic is also furthered by the visual constraints in which it was created. The use of a single panel is the main visual constraint of the comic. Whereas most comics contain three panels in which the story is told, this Bizarro comic is contained in just one. This limited area forces the commentary to be summed up in one small square. This undersized area also creates a focused effect on the argument of the comic at hand, allowing it to be more obvious to its readers. While a focus on the argument is an important part of how this comic is formed, there is a more important parallel created through the use of one panel to a specific element within the comic itself.

The Mayan calendar depicted in the frame of the comic is an important component of the visual structure. Its historically accurate and detailed depiction proves that this image is important to the overall argument created within the comic. As shown in the image at the left, this calendar was created in a circular fashion so that there was a finite amount of room available to its creator for the time in which he (or she) was incorporating. As so eloquently said by one the characters, “I only had enough room…”. Just as the comic only had one frame to tell its story, the calendar was also limited by the finite amount of room to keep time. This analogy created between the frame of the comic and the confines of the calendar aids in the argument of misunderstanding as well as the negating of material constraints. By using a single panel of a comic, a common art form of modern culture, it helps to explain how the ancient calendar could also have been constrained by its medium in a similar manner. In other words, the comic helps to “explain the unknown by the known”. (Wysocki and Lynch 306) This relationship between the various parts of the comic is not confined to the calendar and framing.

The interaction between the inaccurate narrative and argument that the comic is working to portray is what appeals to the pathos of the audience via humor. The narrative that has been laid over the Mayan calendar in popular culture for the reasons behind the end of the Mayan calendar on the Winter solstice is that this is when the Mayans thought the world would end. The humor is held in the argument within the comic, that they actually just ran out of room on their stone to continue moving through time. They way that this message is told to the audience through slang dialect by the character’s dialogue also adds to the humor. Another part of the comic that adds to the pathos used to further the argument is the portrayal of the characters. These characters are caricatures of what actual Mayans look like. This overall comedic theme throughout the panel helps to further the argument by appealing to the pathos of the audience in an everyday and humorous way that is communicated to a variety of audiences. This type of lighthearted communication is more likely to make an audience accepting of the argument that a creator is trying to form and this is especially true with the Bizarro comic.

Many comics contain an argument, whether it is underlying or in your face. Dan Piraro, creator of the Bizarro comics, has a more ‘in your face’ style than other comic artists. In the December 21, 2009 comic, this argument is as evident as ever. The argument of this particular comic is that as a society, we tend to misread and negate the material constraints of a text and instead lay our own narrative over it that undermines the text’s original purpose and importance. This argument is created through the utilization of the aesthetic and rhetorical techniques through the use of text, visual constraints, and pathos through humor. Now it has been suggested that as a society, we tend to overlay our own assumptions on the unknown in history. Not only do comics comment on this misunderstanding, but other parts of the entertainment industry as well, in books and movies. One of the most well known historical misunderstandings that has been popularized by the entertainment industry is the DaVinci Code novels and movie series. What else in the course of history has been misread and where else in the entertainment industry has this been displayed?

Works Cited:

Piraro, Dan. Countdown to Catastrophe. 21 Dec. 2009. BizarroBlog. blogger.com, 30 Dec. 2009. Web. 28 Mar. 2010.

Wysocki, Anne Frances, and Dennis A. Lynch. Compose, Design, Advocate. N.p.: Pearson Education Inc., 2007. Print.