Collectanea

I'm creating a book of images and text that I have collected over the past couple of weeks. I've learned a lot from it so far. It's quite interesting to gather all sorts of information... you're not sure how it will work out at first, however once it's all together you really start to notice things that weren't initially apparent. I think everyone should make a collectanea book. infact... here are the instructions:

“Delight comes from the simultaneous perception of multiple meanings within one form.”
Edmund Carpenter

How are our perceptual lens constructed?
What makes meaning?
Is the thought of the thing the thing itself?
In terms of perception, how does form and imagery function?

Building a visual resource document is a way to think and learn about the interests that come to shape your work. This document is a journey, a scrap book of possibilities and beginnings of ideas that are taking root. This resource document is a gathering together; a collecting and compiling of visual and textual resources that link to your artistic practice, thoughts, forms and ideas, or, images that you simply respond to. Constructing this document will help you to understand myriad associations and unexpected relationships that can occur in your work and it will encourage you to seek out and build on ideas and images that explore metaphor, analogy and cross references throughout your work. The writer John Berger notes that, ”Words, comparisons, signs need to create a context for a work of art…a radial system has to be constructed around the work of art so that it may be seen in terms which are simultaneously personal, political, economic, dramatic, everyday and historic.” This visual resource document is just the beginning; it can and should continue to grow over the years.

Collection and Presentation
1. Your collected images and text must be presented in printed format such as Xerox or digital print on paper and bound. The cover of the document may be hand bound or professionally bound.
2. Your final document should contain a minimum of 36 images, 30 will be collected images and text and 6 images will be digital images of your work. Two copies of this document must be presented at the final.
3. The document (book) must contain a bibliography, identifying the resources from which the images and text was derived, and a short three line statement about why you selected the image. This should appear at the end of the document (book).
4. Your own work should be identified by name, date made, material, and scale.
5. The collected images may be organized in any manner you see fit. Your work should be at the end of the document and the bibliography last.
6. Provide a cover sheet with your name, year, school affiliation and studio concentration.

List of Collected Images and Text
1. 7 images from contemporary life/culture: newspaper, magazine, mailings, envelopes, wrappers, container lids, etc.
2. 7 historical images from ancient to contemporary: may be jewelry, images, art, photographs, costume, crafts, artifacts, etc.
3. 5 images from the Non-Western world
4. 4 text based forms: may be poetry, literature, quotes, ads, found forms, music, etc.
5. 5 images from the world of science (botany, chemistry, etc) math and physics OK
6. 7 images of artwork from artists with whom you share a conceptual or formal affinity
7. 7 images of your work

Try it if you have the time. Go to Blurb.com if you want a nice book made and don't have the time to do it yourself.


These are the best ones I've made out of the group