Blog 3

Big Ideas and Artmaking

In this article, I learned that in the process of creation art, people must come up with a big idea first. When developing a big idea, it requires students to have adequate knowledge as well as patience to experiment in order to choose the best big idea for the art. Sometimes the big idea can be the same of theme, but it is not absolute since a big idea is more general than a theme. In addition, subject matter is not equal to big idea as well. For example Jennifer Bartlett's picture's subject matter is gardens, however, her big idea is the exploration of the use of rules and systems.

I find a problem in this article about the idea of Jennifer Bartlett. She said she would like to bend the rules, but I do not think so. Because she neither changed the method of creating a picture nor had new creation towards the content of the picture. She just mixed the style in different pictures, which I do not think it is the way to bend the rules.

Interpreting Connotations in Visual Culture

From this article, I learned a lot about how to get information and analyse the meaning of visual stuff by using denotations and connotations. To be more specific, denotations can tell us what is the product used for, what does it contain and the basic information like name, outlook of the product. In terms of connotations, it can explain the meaning of the product, including the meaning of its name and what the thing try to tell us. The author uses many examples to show how to use denotations and connotations. With his description, I find that when people want to use these two elements, they must be very careful about everything they can see, they cannot miss any details, or they will not analyse the product effectively.

I do not have any specific question about this article since the author illustrates everything in details and clear. However, I am really curious about the conclusions those people made which are mentioned in the article, are they really true or no body have confirmed them at all.