Kruger Collage Project

1. I was successful in achieving the goals of this project because I explored the idea of not having one universal meaning of my art piece and affecting people's point of view. I wanted to provoke people's idea of catcalling and being happy for other people's benefit, but it can be interpreted in many other ways. I think it is very important to question the actions of people around me, and I think that questioning something such as fake happiness is important.

2.  When thinking of what I wanted to express in the beginning of my piece, I had no idea what message I wanted to spread. Unlike how my other projects were staged, I wanted to follow where my references led me. The main question I was thinking of was what inspired me. My goal was to find an inspiration that would be universal, or something everyone could relate to and empathize with. So as I went through photos, I picked up anything that would be possibly be turned around to comment on the world around us.
          When I found an article on the Mona Lisa, they discussed her smile, and my imagination ran free with the mystery. Since her smile is so iconic, I decided that I wanted to base my piece off of the pressure of being happy and being forced to smile for other people. You shouldn't be scared to be unhappy, and no one is ever happy all the time. There is nothing wrong with not being happy, and you don't have to kid yourself into thinking you are for other people. Smile, is one of the most popular cat-calls, and I wanted to show that in a satirical sense. Filling the background of my piece with forced smiles really shows the pressure and humor behind having to smile for other people, and I am really happy that it came across successfully. It may look a little scary at first, but to understand the meaning of my piece you have to force yourself to look at it and understand our reality.

3. Babera Kruger is an amazing artist, and her inspirational commentary on the world around her is an amazing feat. In a lot of her art shown to the class, her style is very simplistic and dark. Everything in her piece is usually monotone besides the bright text. I took inspiration from that technique by keeping the entire Mona Lisa and smile background black and white, and added bright red text on top. The contrast really draws your eye to the almost bloody looking letters, and keeps you drawn in. I also took the idea of her pieces having no one meaning into consideration. In a graphic style such as hers, the goal is for it to be seen by everyone, each with a different way of thinking. I wanted to do something similar with my piece, and I really hope everyone can relate to it in one way or another.

4. In the critique, I was very pleased with my feedback. I loved hearing everyone's different point of view, and that they really liked it. Hearing the positive reactions were really the icing on the cake, I loved how my project turned out, and it was great to hear others liked it too. This was obviously a mini project, so time was a little more limited, so there were obviously things I could change. In all, the constructive criticism I got really aided me in understanding their interpretation, and also make my project better. It was really rewarding to see the class branched off their own views on my piece from one and other. Overall, they were really spot on with the idea of cat-calling and fake happiness, and I really hope they took something from it.

5. If we could do this project again there would be a lot of things I would change. I have never done art in a mindset of graffiti or graphic design, and I think that it was difficult of imagine it seen by so many people. The limited time and resources, were not a cap on my creativity by any means, I just wished I could have made it bigger. When cutting off the white trim of blank paper, it made it even smaller, so I would love to see it on the intended larger scale. Also, people commented on how all the smiles were a little difficult to differentiate, which I completely understand. I personally like the confusion and cramped manner, but I do wish the smiles did have a clearer border. If I was a professional artist and this were to be on a huge scale, I think it would be really cool to use smiles not just found on the internet. I would maybe go around and collect smiles from people all over the world, as if they were smiling together for awareness.





Image is now in! Sorry I didn't see the request for it at the top!