Visual Essay Reflections

Working on the visual essay was an interesting experience. I had never thought about the concept of a visual essay before taking this this class. The first thing I had to do for this project was to take the pictures. I had a lot of fun wandering around campus taking pictures of all the different buildings, sidewalk chalk drawings, and landscaping. My theme was the different forms of public art. There are many different things that can be considered public art that most people do not think of and appreciate as art. This project also allowed me to work on my public speaking skills, and I would like to think that I have better presentation skills now than I did before this project.

My Visual Essay

These are my pictures from my visual essay. The theme of my essay is the different kinds of public art, definitions of public art, or what can be considered public art. I put images together that show the same "category" of public art, and I ordered the categories, starting with the categories that are obvious as public art, and I ended with the categories that a lot of people would not generally think of when they think about public art. The images here are ordered in the same order as in my essay.

Visual Essay Theme

My theme for the visual essay presentation is different kinds of public art. When people think of public art, the first thing that comes to most people's minds are sculptures and murals. However, more discrete things such as landscaping can also be public art. Especially if you live in a large city such as Atlanta that is not a very artsy city, you have to learn how to also appreciate these other forms of public art if you want to find more public art because you won't find much public art if the only things you appreciate as public art are the more obvious forms of art such as sculptures and murals.

Art Experiences

Walking around a city looking at public art and going to a museum to see artworks are two very different experiences. I personally prefer walking around an area looking for public art as opposed to visiting a museum. First of all, you don't have to pay money to look around at public art, but you have to pay to enter a museum. Also, when you are out in search of public art, it feels like an adventure instead of walking around a quiet building with a lot of other people, many of whom probably don't want to be there.

However, going to a museum also has it's advantages. For example, museums have a larger amount of art in a smaller area. If you choose to go to a museum, you will not have to wander around an entire city searching. Instead, you can just walk around the building and enjoy.

Public Art

This image is an example of public art. The image shows a work of graffiti art on the side of a building in Dusseldorf, Germany. Although graffiti is often very unappreciated and  looked down upon, I think that graffiti is a very good example of public art, because it is painted specifically for the general public and the artist paints it to make a specific point about some kind of issue. I think that graffiti is also a good way to explain public art because not only does it fit those qualifications, the artists who paint graffiti are under a great deal of pressure because in many countries, they are committing illegal acts to be able to present their point of view to the public through their art.

Picture Source: http://akheilshah.com/graffiti-art-in-dusseldorf-germany/