Digging deeper into Art

A piece of art can be interpreted in various ways. The less details shown, the harder one must think to make an understanding of what the artist was trying to show through the use of shapes, color, point of view, and how it could connect to either one's life or the community.

In these two paintings, I wanted to design a look that connected to the novel "The Bean Trees" By Barbara Kingsolver. One of my paintings was inspired by a painting from the book "The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art" By Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan. The other painting was a moral I understood from reading one of the chapters of The Bean Trees.

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup Can, 1964 silk screen canvas

My third painting I created to connect to The Bean Trees is a can of Dole Mixed Fruits. I was inspired by a simple painting of Campbell's Tomato Soup I found in The Painter's Eye Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. 








When I first came across this painting, my first thought was "WHY?" Before reading the meaning behind why Andy Warhol painted this, I tried think of a reason of why a can of soup was important. My first intention of this painting was connected with hunger or poverty. The access to a can of tomato soup in a grocery store is highly obtainable, considering most are at most $1.00 each. Yet this wasn't how he interpreted his painting.

Why is this image so famous?
Warhol wanted people to be drawn to the fact that a big can of soup is displayed on a museum wall. As people analyze the painting, not much would come to our minds thinking of how this is significant. His reasoning for this was that, "...the shape of the can, solid and compact, pleasingly proportioned, the color of the label, the crisp contrast of red and white." (Greenberg and Jordan 81) all these attributes would change the point of view of someone walking down the soup aisle of a grocery store. He believed that the precise painting of a can and the use of basic details depicted how "our daily life are glorified by art." (Greenberg and Jordan 81). His last line of this paragraph I feel really ties in the whole understanding of why I painted.

After reading his interpretation of Tomato soup, I set my mind to find a meaningful representation of an issue in society to connect with a can of perishable foods. While I tried to think of connecting food to The Bean Trees, I didn't want the representation to be simple and straightforward like vegetables to relate with Turtle. I thought of the book as a whole of how the government is unreasonable towards immigrants like Estevan and Esperanza. After a hard 2 minutes of thinking, I came up with the idea of canned Dole Mixed Fruits. Warhol's last line was, "And that, in the end, is what it's all about." (Greenberg and Jordan 81) helped me realize that the idea of painting a can of fruit wasn't crazy. Having people realize that art is surrounding us helps them analyze objects more in depth to try and answer questions of how to solve problems in our society.

The DOLE reality

Why fruits you ask?

Fruits, so many different types grown in various ways. All of them taste different, some sweet some sour. I saw a can of mixed fruits important because everyone of the fruits no matter what flavor is sealed in a can. I saw this as a government full of diverse personalities and ethnic backgrounds. The topic of stereotypes and prejudice against certain racial groups are very crucial and important to me. I painted a can of Dole Mixed Fruits because I saw this as an opportunity to show that the government in the 1980s was unfair. The government not accepting "illegals" in the country made me very angry as I read the novel. The reason for Estevan and Esperanza being in the US is to find a safe hiding place to stay away from interrogations in the Guatemalan government. Having the government kick people out when they are in danger shows how cruel white people are towards people of color. The painting I created I wanted to show people that this is how our government, schools, communities, and neighborhoods should be like in order for there to be no harm towards one another. Art shows the DOLE reality of how our society is like.

For the color choices of this painting, I did not put much thought into the color of the fruits because many of the fruits on the main label are fairly similar in color; I mainly painted, red, yellow, orange, and a blackberry to show somewhat of a diverse community. My painting skill have not perfected much yet but some techniques I believe I could have done to make the can look more compact and slick would be adding tapes on the sides to have a smoother and straighter line to express the cylinder shape.

Process of Stippling definition 

Night Blooming Cereus 

The painting on the left is a part of my process of making the night blooming cereus.

For the stippling effect, I used the back of a new pencil to assure that the stamp of the flat rounded eraser would be noticeable to show texture and depth in the flower.

The shape of the flower doesn't have sharp edges because I wanted to show the soft and fragile appearance of how special it was to show the moral of appreciating what you have at the moment it’s there. 

I used the colors lavender, magenta, vibrant orange, red, forest green, light green, yellow, and jade green. I mixed these colors together to create a vibrant flower to capture the beauty of a night blooming cereus. After painting the flower, I didn’t want to leave the background blank so I used 3 different shades of green to represent the types of vegetables and importance of wisteria vines brought up in the novel. The choice of colors I used to create the painting are very vibrant because I wanted to show depth and the flow of emotions that was going on when Edna had shown everyone the flower. How I interpreted this scene was since the flower only blooms one night a year and the fragrance disappears when you cut the flower petals, the meaning behind this was to cherish what you have now even if there’s a possibility of you losing it. This applied to Taylor and Turtle’s relationship if Taylor had lost Turtle to the state orphanage for custody. 

*I originally made this painting for the art project of making a new cover for the novel, but I figured making a painting would show much more detail and meaning when one is analyzing my art.*

Although the book did not say anything about stippling effect for acrylic paint, the idea of stippling is simply shown in the front cover and in one of the paintings of visual effects. The stippling is not as clearly represented in this photo but, the dots are gradually darker as they go from left to right. The effect shows by giving off more detail and provides a strong structure of a realistic photo of a subject. 

Greenberg, Jan, and Sandra Jordan. The Painter's Eye: Learning to Look at Contemporary American Art. New York: Delacorte, 1991. Print. 

Overall, I feel like the interpretations I am making from my art are quite confusing but understandable after reading the text and taking apart each piece to analyze how I'm truly thinking. For my next paintings I will try to incorporate a part of modern society to assure that others can relate to the art or comment to help me improve my artistic view. 

Do you have any suggestions of what painting techniques I should try to improve the visual effects of my artwork?  

If the only clue I gave about my paintings were "The Bean Trees", how would you have interpreted the artwork? Especially my painting of the canned fruits! 

Leave a comment down below! (: