Eric Cook

Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings

The snake that can not shed its skin perishes

I change myself, I change the world

I change myself, I change the world

Experimental Project Response

I approached the prompts through a mostly narrative style. Even my poetry relied on narrative elements. However, I really tried to develop my imagery in both my writing and visuals. This approach stayed relatively constant throughout the whole project.

My favorite prompt was about regret. Before this project, I never explored this subject. The image that came to my mind was a rubberband ball. I always seem to remove rubber bands from those balls for various purposes. After I remove them, I seem to regret the “mutilation” of the ball. In one of my pieces, I incorporated a ruber-band like pattern into a photograph by inserting the pattern into a fence. Across the fence, is a ball. Again, I used a narrative style for this visual.

My favorite material was the charcoal. By using charcoal I was able to experiment with textures. In my image with charcoal, I utilized this medium by darkening the important parts. Another reason I liked it was I felt I could be more freeform.

Overall, I strived to experiment with different styles and techniques that I usually don’t do. For example, with my charcoal piece, I attempted to add a lot of shading. I have always wanted to improve how I perceive light and I feel that this example gave me the opportunity to do so. In my writing, I focused on improving my poetry. I stepped out of my comfort zone, especially, with my poem called “Orb,” which is somewhat experimental. In my photographs, I focused on my composition and how things were placed. Usually, I focus on what is happening in the piece. In my photographs, I decided to keep the subject matter simple and just try to communicate my point with the composition. An example of this is with the ball behind the fence. I placed the ball in the corner, not the center. This hints that maybe there is something more important behind the fence then just the ball.

After reviewing my pieces, I realized that I use blur to help communicate ideas. In my piece about the shedding the old, I used a blurry background to communicate the idea that the past or what is behind, isn’t important. In most of my pieces, I don’t end the piece at the edge of the frame. An example of this is with my robot wig-maker picture. I have part of a building cut off in the picture, giving the impression that the city goes on.

I tried to keep most of my images colorful and saturated. However, I also included some desaturated or black and white imag-es. As I took a narrative approach to this project, there seems to be a sense of mystery running throughout my work. For example, with my black and white table picture, there is a mystery to who painted the ship on the wall and why.

AgeAttentionBeautyAcceptanceDenial LoveBeing contentIgnoranceMonotony Light