TASK
- This is to arrange shapes in space so as to create a focused form
- Arrange the individual neighborhoods within the city of St. Louis into an interesting, nonrepresentational design that exposes the city's current strengths and/or weaknesses.
- In 2015 St. Louis experienced 164 homicides, the highest number since 2008. The high number of homicides along with the recent history of the unrest in Ferguson and other regions of the City has brought our region's struggles to the forefront of the local and national conscience. Good art is not simply something that "looks nice." Good art is in subtle, peaceful dialogue with contemporary news, culture, morality, and belief. Good art causes a viewer to pause, reflect, critique, and converse about the world around them.
- Without ever writing one word, art makes a statement. It does this through the use of color, and the placement of shapes and forms on a page. There are about one hundred different ways to convey an artist's message. For every one hundred ways to do something correctly, there are an infinite number of ways to get it wrong. The slightest change on an object's placement can totally alter the message of a piece for better or worse. Like the wrong subject in a sentence or a wrong sentence in a paragraph, the wrong shape in the wrong place can be ambiguous, confusing, distracting, or detracting for the viewer. Furthermore, once a shape has been placed, the artist must consider how that one shape relates with all the other shapes as they make one shared form. A well-placed shape in a sea of poorly-placed shapes does little good for a work of art. The best works of art have each shape in a harmonious placement with those around it.
- At least two colors of construction paper
- Map of St. Louis
- Scissors, X-acto, glue
- Introduction to X-Acto blades
- Consider the use of negative space
- Where on the page are the shapes best placed?
- If your project looks like something obvious, start again
- Arrange objects in a variety of levels of concentration from dense to sparse
- Do the implied lines direct the viewers' eyes around the page? If so, in what direction?
EXAMPLES