A New Way of Thinking...

I have never worked in the way that we've been working here in Florence before. I'm used to being given a concrete assignment or a specific task. In the past, I've always known what I wanted the final outcome of my projects to look like before I even began to work. I'm used to creating comps, sketches, and plans. I've never had to express a "personal narrative" in my artwork, so the Theme Sequence class is definitely going to be a different experience than I'm used to. I guess, for me, the "tradition" is my somewhat one-dimensional way of thinking of my own art and how I like to work. In the past I may have boxed myself in to a way of thinking and producing art that doesn't allow for personal experimentation or interruption. Some may think that’s a bad thing, but I knew (or thought I knew) what kind of art I liked to make and how I liked to make it. I worked with familiar mediums and themes; I became comfortable with myself and how I create artworks. Here, I’ve been told that a “true artist” isn’t afraid to play with unfamiliar and untried mediums, themes, subjects, but why can’t an artist know what he likes and stick with it? I’m a Communication Design major, so much of my art-making is based off of selling/communicating an idea, product, or information. Knowing what you want to communicate and committing to it before you start is all part of the process. In fact, it’s the most important part of the process. If you screw up that first step, you screw up the whole thing. So, in terms of this class, I’m a little out of my comfort zone, and the “revolution” is an entirely new way of thinking about and creating art.