Blog Post

As I read "Telling" I was influenced by the fact that many artists do not only use one object to relay an emotion or to get the message across. However for me I felt the power of one dramatic object paired with words would do justice to the identity I am claiming. I never gave much importance to the telling of a story or art piece until I read this chapter. The way the audience interprets your work shows where their boundaries start and end. The boundaries are defined by context; sacred space, or profane art space (61). Telling becomes a powerful experience for the listener because it gives you the starting point to seeking further knowledge about the piece and what the art is representing. You begin to train your eyes from a different perspective. Telling is a powerful experience for the artist because there are no restrictions to expressing your emotions or character freely. It's very raw and unedited for the artist. Telling was a powerful experience for me while working on my self portrait because I discovered there was so much more I did not know about myself than I thought. The liberation comes within the fact that you can choose your starting point and there aren't any guidelines, you create your own formula, structure and image.

Artist often use unfamiliar strategies and baffling modernisms that can appear hostile outside the art world and remain problematic for conservative middle- class ethnic art circles as well as for inner city communities (99). Artists many times are affected by prejudices and economic realities; truth is relayed a lot differently when you are not reading. Rather telling a story through art conjures up a personal relationship. The possibilities are endless in the telling process because you begin to look through the lens of diversity. And it’s a separate and very unique experience for every individual.