Where Earth Meets Art
If you think you've heard that title before, it's because you probably have. That is the slogan for the new Seattle Art Museums' outdoor Olympic Sculpture Park. I have yet to go walk through but plan on marking it off my list soon. I would have done it already if it weren't for the big eraser sculpture I saw when driving by. Why feature an item artists use to delete there work? It just doesn't seem like art to me.
So I was walking to the Wells Fargo Bank from my house through the Wallingford neighborhood, when I saw a painted billboard advertising the new park. The billboard painting itself was a piece of art. I had my digital camera with me and decided to take a picture. It's the shot above. I was just taken back by the different textures. The metal along a stairwell, the trees, the brick, and the billboard. It to me was 'Where Earth Meets Art".
As I kept walking, I noticed other things that I felt fit in this category. Cool street art or graffiti on buildings that at one time also had advertising on them. Old typography and fonts were so clean and simple back in the day that they almost are better than a lot of what's currently out there. I think one of the hardest things in graphic design is to make an impact and still be clean. Just because we have all this new technology doesn't mean that we can communicate it better through graphic treatments. I feel like there is a movement back towards simple, straight forward fonts.
Our generation has been so bombarded with advertising, slogans, messages, and 'used car salesmen' tactics that a blunt, straight-forward message can almost be refreshing. Hmm, what is the difference between a graphic designer and a graphic artist? Are there designers out in the world that aren't artists as well? For example, somebody who designs a logo or a font, are they any less an artist? I don't think so.
If you'd like to follow me along my walk and the things I saw, go to my photo gallery and click on 'Wallingford Walk'. Go check out the new Olympic Sculpture Park as well. Then notice all the other places in Seattle 'Where Earth Meets Art". I think you'll find that it's all around you.
So somebody brought to my attention that you normally end a entry with a quote instead of start it (like I did in an earlier Routine entry). I beg to differ. I think you can either begin with one, put one in the middle, or conclude with a quote. As long as it has meaning it shouldn't matter which part of the copy it appears. Today, it's at the end.
"What you see and hear depends a good deal on where you're standing". - C.S. Lewis.