Friday, August 26, 2005
What to write
Hello everyone. SO I have been brainstorming about what to write about this fall and I have to say that it is quite difficult to find books and articles that really relate to what I want to talk about. So I was wondering if anyone had any ideas or suggestions for me. If you all remember, my summer work dealt with characters from classic fairytales. I have been free writing a lot in my sketchbook and have decided that the reason I was having such a difficult time trying to create new depictions of these characters was, that these were all well established and "over-done" characters, and though I found them interesting they didn't have a true deeper connection to me. SO it was like I wasn't really creating anything new and personally tied to me. Does that make sense? So I had this idea to maybe start writing short stories and create my own drawings for these stories and then eventually create three-dimensional sculptures of the drawings. This is something I'm really excited about and I think because the stories will be of my own creation that the content and context in the sculptural pieces will be clearer.(could I have used the word "create" any more in that paragraph?)SO, I have been thinking about looking into Mythology, figure drawing, cartooning, and even caricature drawing, but all the books I find are "how to..." Books and collections of stories, and that's not what I really want. I'm more interested in how myths and fables came to be told; their history. And I guess I'm looking for a good book or article on ceramics and sculpture and figure and character creation in ceramics. A lot huh? Well if anyone has any input it will be more then helpful I'm sure. Let me know! Thanks!!
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5 comments:
Deb-
Interesting. You have a lot going on in these ideas - first there's the aspect of myth itself; second, there's the way it's represented. I would encourage you to figure out where the strongest pull is for now and go from there. For our purposes, the class program intends these to be research-driven writing projects so writing short fiction (though it would be helpful) won't fulfill what you need to do for the course. However, if the first area of interest appeals to you, you might consider reading up on the role of myth in the writings of someone like Joseph Campbell. I would still encourage you to read Catherine Ornstein's book Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked: Sex, Morality and the Evolution of a Fairytale. If the question of how myths are visually represented is more interesting, you might go any number of ways. You could look at the history of icons, for example, to see how the "rules" of portraying divine images developed. Perhaps more to your interest, you could read up on the history of caricature and the grotesque, looking into Da Vinci, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Daumier, and others. Author Scott McCloud has written histories of comics that are very visual and not how-to books, and $10 says there's some Visual Studies genius writing about the conventions of depiction in toys and manga out there. They address the visual conventions of various comic styles.
So there are a few thoughts off the top of my head. Let's see how your classmates respond. I hope this helps.
Some ceramic artists to look at could be Kukuli Velardi, (a clay studio person.) Adrian Arleo and Jack Thompson. All deal with translating myth, death & sex into different characters. Check out the Garth Clarke website, I'm almost certain they have a book for sale dealing closely with your subject.
Kikuli is an excellent suggestion.
thanks guys! You all have been a great help. Looks like I have some reading to do!
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