Wednesday, September 16, 2009

an exercise in two parts

Reading a couple of posts by Paul Lester and Anita Jesse triggered this. I'm going to be light in details in this first post, deliberately. This is part of one of the more eye-opening exercises I did on a recent workshop.

What was the first two dimensional piece of art that really had a strong influence on you?

You might need to sit and think quietly about it for 5 minutes to really get back into your past and think about the first image that got under your skin. It might be a photograph, a painting, it might be a 'cat in the hat' book you loved, or that caterpillar with holes in the pages. But if you give it some quiet thought there is probably one image back in they dusty places in your mind that stands out as the early moment of revelation or awe.

The second thing to consider is what would be the first photograph that really clicked with you and made you want to pick up a camera.

Give it a bit of thought. You certainly don't have to post here. This is not a test and there aren't correct answers. No point in trying to come up with some impressive response. Just think about it and maybe write down the one or two sources that come to mind.

4 comments:

Anita Jesse said...

Gordon, it is so good to have you back. Spending less that five minutes on this exercise has me accepting some things that I was resisting. Thanks. And, thank you for the link.

Chris Klug said...

Joe Mielziner's sketch for 'Death of a Salesman'

That's the image that come screaming into my mind

DJ Schulte said...

During my college days, I went to the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art in KC, MO and saw Thomas Hart Benton's Persephone. I fell in love with art that day.

Patrick Dodds said...

Seeing Egon Schiele at the Royal Academy in London in about 1984 - paintings like this http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.penwith.co.uk/artofeurope/schiele_embrace.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.penwith.co.uk/artofeurope/schiele.htm&usg=__8AGkcgHXB5L1AybVNDuBDlbn4MU=&h=352&w=600&sz=87&hl=en&start=6&tbnid=dN9JYWfU1uaNjM:&tbnh=79&tbnw=135&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dschiele%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den - I think up until then I had been pretending to myself, and others, that I liked art and that it meant something to me. After this, I did and it did.