WP3: Statement of Purpose

This semester we have been exposed to analyzing rhetorical elements of objects. We began by analyzing photographs and followed this by analyzing comic strips. For our final writing project we were selected a sculpture outside the Sheldon Art Museum and were asked to analyze it. I was assigned “Willy”. This sculpture was created out of welded steel in 1962 by sculptor Tony Smith. Unlike sculptures with definite resemblances, “Willy” allows its audience to interpret it in a different way. With art objects that show an exact replica, a picture of an apple for example, don’t let the audience to expand their minds and enjoy the art and view it in your own way.

The context in which “Willy” is placed hints at a possible argument. It is placed outside the confines of the museum within the nature surrounding the museum. Its large size and color made me think about possible arguments that could be established through this piece of art. I tried to break down each part and aspect of this sculpture to come up with ideas. My initial observation was the geometric shapes that it consists of, however I felt that was too basic and looked also at its surroundings. I walked through it, touched it and noticed its hollow sound.

“Willy”, though a seemingly simplistic sculpture, uses the space and nature surrounding it to emphasize its aspects. Its black color and the texture of the metal allow it to reflect the colors and light that surround it. While walking around “Willy”, I noticed that even the color of my clothes could be seen reflected on its surface. This shows how the audience, art object and the context all work together when it comes to this particular piece of art. The sculpture argues the affect that each thing in life has on the other. The weather had altered parts of “Willy” as well. With the windy weather, dirt had been blown on to its surface giving it subtle brown lines running down the sides. I addition to this, the outlook of the sculpture was constantly changing. As each minute passed, the sun moved in a different position in relation to the piece. This made the shadows cast by “Willy” become constantly altered. Each minute, day, season, and year will make this sculpture different in at least a small way. Tomorrow it could be casting shadows, winter it will be covered in snow, and in a couple more years more weathering of the metal will be noticeable.

Many of Tony Smith’s sculptures are located outside and are made to the same scale and others even larger than “Willy”. He makes his art seem larger than life and allows it to work together with the natural environment letting it change the outlook and appearance of each piece. Although the weather and its surroundings have an effect on “Willy”, the welded steel he is composed of is resistant to any rusting rain or snow may cause. This can argue that the relationship with art, time, and nature is strong.

When I researched Tony Smith for one of the previous blog posts, I did not look to deeply into his background or information. I also did not find too much about “Willy”. However for this blog post I was able to find more information on both artist and sculpture. When a child he was put in quarantine structure behind his house after being diagnosed with tuberculosis (New Angles on Art). He spent much of his time building models out of medicine boxes. He found his skill of building thing from the family’s tool building business. After spending years in architecture, he became frustrated with people making changes to his work. So he left architecture however he did not keep it from influencing his work.

Tony Smith often found objects in life that he could turn into an idea for his sculpture. For example, one of his earlier sculptures was created after he noticed a file cabinet behind one of his students. He would start with building his models from cardboard and worked from there. I found it interesting that with my deeper research I found that in fact many of his sculptures are described as anthropomorphic in nature (New Angles on Art). I read in the Sheldon Art Museum’s Brochure that Tony Smith’s sculpture “Willy” was influenced by the character Willie in Samuel Beckett’s play Happy Days. Willie spends most of his time crawling around his wife who is buried waist deep in a mound of earth. Like the character in Samuel Beckett’s play Happy Days, “Willy” looks as to be a object crawling.

With this new knowledge of Tony Smith’s “Willy” sculpture, I am better able to interpret or get a better sense of its purpose or argument. Now that I know the relationship between the sculpture “Willy” and the character Willie from the play, I see that my original interpretation of his piece of art is not as accurate as I had originally thought. Instead, I now see how it somewhat resembles a crawling creature. In my original posts I was unable to see any resemblance of his art to anything but geometrics. But instead I now see that his art uses geometric shapes to create a unique form of anthropomorphism in “Willy”. In addition to the combination of geometry and anthropomorphism, I can now understand that the name that Tony Smith gave to this particular sculpture was of importance to him. It is now more evident to me that sometimes to get the full interpretation of a sculpture, or any piece of art really, you must also try and see the background or meaning behind it. We must step back and try to imagine different purposes. After learning more about Tony Smith himself and the artwork he produced you can see how he parallels his love of architecture with his talent in building sculptures. His works of art were, and are still, seen as “monumental, grand, spiritual, anthropomorphic, elusive, exploring infinity, geometric, biomorphic, complex, simple, multifaceted” (New Angles on Art).


Works Cited:

(n.d.). Snapshot: tony smith. Retrieved from http://www.nga.gov/education/classroom/new_angles/bio_smith.shtm

Intensification Writing Project

During our past two classes we have been exposed to different forms of “music” if you will. The two artists we were exposed to had two different definitions of music. John Cage felt that the silence and everyday noises was music. He points out that those everyday noises are never the same, unlike some music that is composed, it does not try to imitate things. In contrast, Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips wanted to expand the idea listening and composing. Thus he created an album that must have all four cd's playing at the same time to get the desired effect of the composer. He created it so that each cd was playing the same song but was featuring alternate parts.

In the same way, Tony Smith has created his own view of sculpture and art. He expands off of the idea of geometry and geometric shapes. When I first think of geometry, I think of drawing the shapes we learned in class on a piece of paper for the teacher to examine. These one dimensional shapes were distinct and did not strike me as any sort of art. Tony Smith combines aspects of geometry into his works. He incorporated his background in architecture with the knowledge of everyday shapes. “Willy” is an expansion of geometric shapes. When an audience looks at Tony Smith’s Sculpture they first see a black metal mass that is almost awkwardly formed to sit on the ground in front of the Westbrook Music Building. However the audience must look deeper into each section of the sculpture.

While thinking of a way to properly answer the questions, or topic, for this post I had to keep in mind the idea of intensification. I remembered the way each cd was as important as the next. So I needed to step back and think of ways in which Tony Smith would try and expand the simplicity of sculptures and create an expansive and more intricate piece of art. As I looked at “Willy” I noticed that you could break him down into things as simple as squares or parallelograms. Each shape worked together to create others. When looking at the sculptures around it I noticed that most of them were mate of smooth edges and had very little segments or parts that could be taken apart to find another work. “Will” is also one plain color; black. However this seemingly normal color stands out in its surroundings, intensifying the color’s appeal. Not only to the parts or segments if you will, of “Willy” work together to create the sculpture; the environment in which it is placed also adds to the piece. When looking at “Willy” from one angle you can see the buildings surrounding him; Architecture Hall and Westbrook Music Building for example. From a different angle you can see more of a nature centered background with the Sheldon art museum in the background. This expands on how “Willy” could fit in more than one situation.