Firstly, I apologise for the terrible photo. 3.5 feet x 5 feet heavyweight paper doesn't scan well.

A portrayal of ~Theglavwen - the background is a full transcription of a short story he wrote. He's supposed to be holding a glass of Theglenlivet, which features in his classic avatar, but it's not obvious.

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Assignment two: do a life-sized figure drawing. I picked my boyfriend ~Theglavwen, and decided to capitalize on the viewer experience, making the differences between what they may or may not see and what "actual meaning" there is part of the artwork. In a nutshell, I wanted to focus on the difference between someone's (my class) impression of someone (specifically Casey) and "who they really are" - that you can't know the person just by looking without further investigation, and hopefully something about whether or not people engage in that further investigation. That is, it was as much about the reactions of the viewers (specifically my class) as it is about the actual artwork and person.

The critique? Too much meaning!

"Just listening to you introduce what you really meant makes me disinterested. It's just too daunting."
"I know that all the little things you put into the image supposedly symbolising him may be meaningful and important to you, but you have to realise that they aren't."
"Once I tried to read the text, I realised it didn't matter if I did or not, so I couldn't be bothered"
"Knowing that there is an objective thing being portrayed behind the artwork ruins the art."
"How are we ever supposed to get all your meaning?"

The point was to illustrate how people respond to outward impressions. Apparently, people can't be bothered because there's just too much information, and it's easier to see them the way they want to. It seemed to imply that outward impressions is all that matters, fuck getting to know the real person - "it's just too daunting."

There was ONE person who seemed to know what I was getting at. "I like the text. It's there, and there's a lot of it, and it's all readable. You can read it, or you can ignore it. It's knowing that there's something more to the person, it's their background, you know?"

People then contested her point of view, but amusingly for me it just further reinforced the, "I can't be bothered really knowing, I just want to think what I want about it" mentality.

Given all this, I think it was definitely a success.

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~8 hours
Materials: Earl Grey tea, oolong tea, green tea, cracked pepper, incense ash, charcoal powder, rocks, berries, moss, bark, leaves, hazelnuts, pine cones, soil, pine needles, Casey's hair, graphite, kneadable eraser, chalk pastel, one of Casey's pocket knives, black ink... on 3.5x5 foot heavy blotter paper.