With the help of my group, we found art through this sculpture. As we were walking around campus trying to find something that spoke to us, we came across this sculpture near the bookstore. We had all seen it before, but had never really ever payed much attention to it. For this reason, we decided to use it as a part of our project. One of us had the idea to use the sculpture as a part of our frame, and the group collectively agreed that it was a good idea. Our frame focuses on an area where students like to sit with their friends and hangout, or enjoy a nice meal. The beauty of this piece is that its form, aesthetic, and contents are ever changing and up to interpretation. When I look through our frame, I tend to notice the tree, and how green the leaves on it are. With time, however, that will change. As the tree grows more, the leaves will eventually no longer be in the frame, but the students and the area behind the tree will stay as a focus long after the tree is gone. The form and aesthetic will also change with seasons, as winter comes, the tree’s leaves will not be as green, and the aesthetic will no longer have a vibrant summer feel like the picture above has. It has always been art, putting some tape around a certain part of this sculpture helps to focus in on a certain part, but it was art before the tape was put up, and it will be art after the tape is removed. It will always be art depending on how it is perceived, some people will see it as art and others won’t. However, that does not make it any less of an art piece than a famous painting. Art does not only reside in the body of an object, it also resides in the idea of it. All objects can be art, for example, as a fan of baseball I see art in a batters swing and in a pitchers wind up, not only do these motions spark a feeling of enjoyment in me for certain players, but for all players. Taken very literally the body and technique of one player is no more art than that of another. This example also helps show that art does not have to be a physical object because I personally see the fundamentals of baseball as art. Art solely resides in the experience of a viewer. For me, watching a baseball game is like watching art, I sit down and take the time to enjoy myself and analyze what is happening in the game for its entirety. In my experience, many people my age don’t like to watch baseball and don’t enjoy it, however this does not make it less enjoyable or artistic to me.
Cade Middaugh 