I've had chicken on the brain a lot lately - mostly hens and chicks, but nothing cute and fuzzy. More like a really ticked off hen ready to peck out some eyes, like a duck's eyes. What does an angry chicken look like? Can a chicken be fierce if, in fact, it is "chicken?" Do steroid-pumped chickens have any role in this?
I started thinking about all the other chicken related things our culture has cooked up- movies like "Chicken Little" and "Chicken Run," Kenny Roger's Roasters and Kramer yelling "Baaaaad chicken! Mess you up!" on Seinfeld, the country singing group Dixie Chicks, Foghorn Leghorn, the term "chicks" as applied to female humans, even knitting (!) - "chix with stix". I even bought a whole chicken to cook, a first for me.
All this is stewing in my brain with the intention of visual creative output. I'll post the results in a couple of weeks... until then I'm going to have some really odd dreams!
-Sara
Sara, after reading that post, I will probably have some weird dreams . . . :)
ReplyDeleteAnon-
ReplyDeleteWelcome to an artist's world, full of wierd dreams that are indistinguishable from waking reality. Never a dull mental moment. You can say you've got a lot in common with Dali then! Ha!
Does art have to be over-the-top weird? Or is that another one of *societies* images we think we have put on??
ReplyDeleteNo - I think art should definitely NOT be over the top wierd, otherwise nobody "gets" it and it doesn't communicate a thing. Then it's just a waste of time. I think the elite in our society like to pretend they *get* some of the junk art that's been put out in history (Pollock, for example). Makes the rest of us normal folks feel like we're ignoramuses b/c we don't understand the point of paint splashed on a canvas. Art is not art without beauty. But it should not be trite or cliche either (Kinkade).
ReplyDeleteThis chicken thing is really not as wierd as it sounds. It's a mascot logo for a local (rural-ish) high school, the "chix." Based on chick hatcheries that were the town's claim to fame years ago. So you can see how making a fearsome chick can pose a challenge!
The process of creating understandable art can be strange, as I'm finding out, and lead to strange tangents. But none of that will show up in the final piece. My challenge is to create something out of this strangeness that thousands of everyday people will identify with and latch on to.