Perception: The Mock Poster Lesson

The problem started with plain old fashioned procrastination. I'll do the post later, I'll do the post after I do this post. Which is the problem with writing essays based on whim.

Then came the case of the stubborns. An area of my essay had already been covered and covered well. Yet I was going to have my say on it. It didn't matter that what I was going to say was going to cover the same ground. I was going to do it. I had to do it.

Which is why this post is so very late.

Rather than cover said ground again, I would like to talk about perception and the duty of the Artist on that regard. This would have been the second part of the original essay, had I ever reached it.

The very first mock poster I did, the If You Must Fear Something... (referred to from here out as Fear) linked at left. It is the best of the bunch and the truest to what I was trying for: it looks like an ad for either a movie or a book. There are other considerations commented on elsewhere, but that's the truest one for me. It does it's job.

Unfortunately it doesn't do it that well.

I'm going to quote a portion of Beckoning Chasm's essay to begin illustrating it's problem (and I hope there's no problem with this, as I not only see where he's coming from but think it's an excellent interpretation of the image):

The image sparks a series of questions, such as, what is going on? Is the green hand a menace, a friend, or a warning voice? Does the young girl know about the hand? Would a green hand, here in this world, be considered "normal" or not? Are we in Kansas still, or elsewhere? What happens next?

Chasm made a similar comment while discussing one of the other posters, and when I read it, my jaw dropped. I went back, looked at the picture, read my little bit, and saw.

The duty of the artist, be the artist an illustrator, a writer, a painter, or what have you, is to present the work in such a way that it can be understood. Sometimes the work is to be enjoyed by a select few, sometimes by the masses. Sometimes the meaning the artist intends is crystal clear, sometimes it's ambiguous. So on and so forth.

The most important thing any artist must consider is that if the work has a meaning, there must be enough information there for the audience to make the interpretation or interpretations that the artist intends. (Wotta unwieldy sentence! Curse the day "he" stopped being the generic, catch-all pronoun!)

If the information is not there, it's not the audience's fault for coming to a "wrong" conclusion. It is a failure to communicate, and as it is the artist speaking to the audience, it is the artist who is "wrong".

Assuming blame needs to be placed, of course. Is it more important that the work is enjoyed or that it is "understood"?

Philosophy aside, in the case of Fear, I left out key information with the picture. A part of the problem is that it started out as a picture for me and not the world at large, but that could have been corrected in the accompanying text.

No, the real problem was that I knew what it all meant, to a degree. I suspected who the green hand was, but I knew who the hand was reaching for. This was my main protagonist, who I have been thinking about and refining for five years. I've drawn so many pictures in the process... In fact, too many. To the point where I'm assuming facts not in evidence.

To illustrate, here's the same character (drawn a year or so ago) in a better lit setting:

You could imagine my surprise when I found this young man being called a young girl. But that's just it. Looking back at Fear, it's all as clear as glass. The long hair. The slit sleeve shirt I insist on giving him (which looks so much like a blouse). The foggy setting, in which no perspective is given to height. The picture is very much a young girl about to encounter the supernatural as it is a young man.

It is an absolutely fascinating failure to communicate. I wish half my failures were as good as that. Most, however, are not.

For instance, when I was but a wee young boy, I drew a picture of Jaws the Shark attacking Mighty Godzilla. I showed this masterpiece to my father and asked him who would win in the coming melee.

"The shark," Dad said, to my amazement. When I expressed my disbelief that a mere shark could defeat the King of the Monster, he pointed out just how I had positioned Jaws. And I had to agree, if in rueful embarrassment, that he was right. If Godzilla didn't move quick, he'd become a eunuch.

I wonder how many times I'll need to learn this particular lesson in order to retain it...

The images used in this essay are all Cullen M. M. Waters' work