Tagature
The concept of the "Tagature" project is simple: to thoughtfully select quotes from literature and use them to create an ongoing conversation through tags, graffiti and street art in the 11th grade commons. We will use large wooden panels to collect and facilitate our artistic & literary conversation.
We do four "rounds" of tagging. Each round, we do the following:
- Select a quote from the literature or other readings you have read in and around this class.
- Bring the quote within it's larger literary context to class, along with an artist's statement explaining why you selected it and what you intend to do with it artistically.
- Transform the quote into a graffiti-style tag.
- Create a stencil or poster (or use another graffiti or street art method) to tag at least one board in the 11th Grade Commons.
- Photograph the tag in it's new context.
- Post the photo with a revised artist's statement on a "Tagature" page on your digital portfolio. Your new artist's statement should explain how you view the quote in it's new environment, why you chose it, how you intend others to see it, etc.
Jack White has always been an inspiration to me. So when we were handed an interview with him about creativerty on the first day of school I knew I wanted to implement his words and ideas on inspiration throughout the school year. "You know, deadlines, and things make you creative, but opportunity, and telling yourself “ Oh, you got all the time in the world, all the money in the world, you got all the colors in the palette you want, anything you,” I mean that just kills creativity."
It wasn't until the Tagature project that I was able to directly use the interview into my work. I choose this quote out of the interview because it best summed up the point Jack White was making, which is, totally creative freedom, can actually extinguish creativity. He prefers to set deadlines and create pressure on himself. He also says that if you overproduce then you're more likely to make something really special. This is something that I implement into my art work and this year really pushed to use in my writing. I find that by writing 10 pages and editing it down to the main ideas and summing it up into about 5 pages you will have much stronger writing.
When transferring the quote into the image I went through many drafts. At first I went through many ideas of how to turn the concept of creativity into a physical image. I came up with lots of ideas but none of them popped to me. I then thought why did I choose this quote? What about it made it meaningful? Jack White. It was powerful and important to me because they were words of wisdom from someone I respect and Idolize. So I went back to the drawing board. I made created a stencil on his face highlighting his iconic features. I tried it out on some stuff laying around in my room and I still felt something lacking. It didn't pop. I decided to make some sort of border or background. I had planned to make his face white so I thought of what was relevant to Jack White. I first thought of peppermints which is part of jack white's image however they were white and white. So I editing them so they were black and red. (His favorite colors which appear is all this album art, outfits, and art associated with him) I then pasted them to the make a background. At last I knew it was just right. I was so proud and couldn't think of anyone to improve upon my design.
It wasn't until the Tagature project that I was able to directly use the interview into my work. I choose this quote out of the interview because it best summed up the point Jack White was making, which is, totally creative freedom, can actually extinguish creativity. He prefers to set deadlines and create pressure on himself. He also says that if you overproduce then you're more likely to make something really special. This is something that I implement into my art work and this year really pushed to use in my writing. I find that by writing 10 pages and editing it down to the main ideas and summing it up into about 5 pages you will have much stronger writing.
When transferring the quote into the image I went through many drafts. At first I went through many ideas of how to turn the concept of creativity into a physical image. I came up with lots of ideas but none of them popped to me. I then thought why did I choose this quote? What about it made it meaningful? Jack White. It was powerful and important to me because they were words of wisdom from someone I respect and Idolize. So I went back to the drawing board. I made created a stencil on his face highlighting his iconic features. I tried it out on some stuff laying around in my room and I still felt something lacking. It didn't pop. I decided to make some sort of border or background. I had planned to make his face white so I thought of what was relevant to Jack White. I first thought of peppermints which is part of jack white's image however they were white and white. So I editing them so they were black and red. (His favorite colors which appear is all this album art, outfits, and art associated with him) I then pasted them to the make a background. At last I knew it was just right. I was so proud and couldn't think of anyone to improve upon my design.
I choose this quote because it simplifies a very complicated topic, that we discussed for days on end in humanities class during our mock trial. The question was about the regulation of sugar in america. I was on the side of more regulation of sugar but by the corporations making these products and not the consumer. I have always been very careful about the food I put in my body and have felt passionate about the topic of food. I really enjoyed being educated further into the topic of food. I decided to go for a Banksy inspired tag and try to educate the public about a important matter involving the government and the pursuit of truth. I wanted to show the irony of how we turned vegetables into sugars and junk food and how a lot of these products try to portray themselves are healthy to some degree.
As I approached my final tag I was reading slaughterhouse 5. For the first time I wasn't searching for a quote. I was just reading and there it was in very large text that took up a whole page. The words were on a tombstone. What a lovely thing to put on a grave. However with Kurt Vonneguts ironic style and tone it meant a whole lot more. As I thought more and more about this one sentence I thought of quite a few possible meanings but all of them had an underlying feeling of Sarcasm. The words stuck with me and I knew I wanted to make something in honor of the bittersweet phrase. I knew I wanted to use the quote directly in my art. It was very important so I simply entitled just that and surrounded it with flowers to honor the sweet surface level meaning of this quote.