No, It Didn’t Resonate With Me

25. Case study with Alexa Meade

Prompt: What did she do? What’s her genre? What’s her idiosyncrasy? What’s her process? What’s the change she making happen for her viewer?

I was about to completely ignore this prompt because I thought the premise was too constraining: everyone would regurgitate more-or-less the same answers to these questions, maybe examining her work through their personal creative lens, and maybe the art and photography folks could delve deeper because of their domains. At first glance I thought my video player was broken because I heard no sound, and seeing the quick montage I mumbled to myself, “Wow… great… very cool Alex, thanks for sharing. Wish this video had sound.”

What’s the change she making happen for her viewer?

I was about get into a fight because the idea of art obligatorily forcing you to “be in awe” of it or “change your way of thinking” because of it sounded pompous and overinflated. Don’t get me wrong, stuff does make me cry, like short stories about trains or the inevitable heath death of the universe, but for some reason I don’t really resonate with music or painting. At least from the get-go.

Angela did a wonderful write-up on who Alexa Meade was and why her work was so powerful. After getting some backstory I was like, “Huh, I kind of get it now.”

Wait, getting backstory?

I started to reflect back on instances of various student’s crafts in this workshop and how they affected me on first impression. When I sorta knew what angle someone was fishing for or how their way of thinking could influence me, I was reeled in. When I came across a work with no context and having no background in their realm of creation, I wasn’t really moved by it. A new question now begs to be asked when I start sharing my works through various channels: “how much should my audience understand to appreciate this?”

A final note: remember when I was lamenting how the attached video of Alex’s work had no sound?

@angelatseng: Several year’s later, she revisited her original calling and used her art to champion racial equality and arm control (see below, winner of CNN’s Art as Impact Award). Only this time - the message transcends the medium and the blending of genres (politics/robot dance/living art) makes her work 1000x more powerful.

https://youtu.be/Dq1tm5TqYsg

The blending of genres makes her work 1000x more powerful.

I was having a discussion with Phil where I asked his opinion on why artists from various genres typically do not collaborate…

@philkastelic: My sense is that folks don’t cross paths unless there is a project that brings them together. Even then, they are so busy in their own disciplines they don’t have must time to or to me inclination to mix. It is human nature…we spend time with people like ourselves. It is our bias and it is NOT an easy bias to change.

It looks like I won’t be alone in the creation of my Grand Quest!