Postcards

Postcards Artist Statment

For this project, I chose to focus on the library here at GVSU. I chose the library because it is the bank of knowledge here at GVSU, and there is this kind of stereotype that college kids choose either the creative pursuits or the more “academic” ones. The library is a good representation of this kind of haven for non-creative students, it’s a symbol of academics, and so, I wanted to show how this space can influence the idea of creativity. My question was, how linked are the “hard” academics, to the creative ones? For me, a basic knowledge of all subjects is needed for someone to be truly creative. If we look at creativity as a method of solving problems, then we must acknowledge that an understanding of multiple fields is mandatory when trying to come up with a solution. There are multiple ways to solve a problem. For example, if you lock yourself out of your car, you could smash the whole window to get it, or you could try and short a fuse to open the door, or you could try and pick the lock. All three require different skills, and knowledge, but all three will get you into the car. Being creative is about having knowledge.

For my first postcard, called “To Places We Dreamed Of,” I used Rene Magritte’s technique of “Making the familiar strange” by putting my location into space. By putting my objects into this new environment, I show how the knowledge obtained in the library can take us to places that we before could only imagine. It was through the use of creative thinking and experimentation that we were ever able to get there. Both in the design of the rocket, and in the survival of the astronauts. I once read that NASA struggled to figure out a way to keep all the instruments on the space shuttle both secure, and able to move from one part of the ship to another. All sorts of methods were used before someone finally said, let’s try Velcro. It worked great, it was a simple, creative solution to something that seemed much more complicated.

For my second postcard, I used Tom Bamberger’s repetition style to show the infinite amount of knowledge that is available to us in the library. I duplicated a row of bookshelf’s over and over to make it seem like a very long column. At the end, there is a single, lone workspace that a person can sit at to try and obtain this knowledge.

For my third postcard, called “Sparked Ideas,” I wanted to combine two of the ideas that were present in my last two cards, and fully link them to this idea of creativity, at least, in the classical sense. It uses Skoglund’s idea of transformation in a variety of ways.  We again, have a lone study space isolated in the library, with a book on the table. Floating around the book are a number of lightbulbs all different colors. The changing of the colors here, and their odd placement, are meant to follow Skoglund’s work. Lightbulbs are always a symbol for ideas, and the different colors are to represent the variety of ideas that can be sparked by just the one book. Outside the window, I put a somewhat fantasy setting to try and show the ideas that can be sparked are not just scientific, but also classically creative ones.

Finally, we have my last postcard, entitled “Bent knowledge,” that represents the ideas of Hozer and text mapping. I have taken a piece of art that is in the library, which looks like a bunch of bent books, and put the text on them. The statement, creativity is bent knowledge is kind of the overall conclusion I came to when asking my question. I think it ties together the rest of the cards very nicely.