Kristin Becker's DTC Classes at WSU

 The images I have chosen to show here are all going along with the poem and have a semblance of narrative interplay that I feel would have a profound impact on the broadside. The images of hands were chosen because they are only ever mentioned once, but more so because the narrator of the text seems to be less whole and more broken. They’re rubbed raw from the weight of the world around them, seeking solace in things to try and make themselves feel less empty. I added more than one because I feel like all of them have a weight to the imagery that would lend itself to the poem itself. The words of the poem are meant to be fragile and quiet. The imagery will lend something to draw readers to it.

The second image I chose is a rather interesting image of a woman from behind, with snakes wrapped around her neck. While there is no actual mention of snakes in the poem, there is a lot of religious reference. I think that images like these would definitely help the poem graphically through metaphor. The last image I chose is a more obscure photo meant to represent the sky during the eclipse. Allusions to a “sky garden” are made in this poem, and the poet and I have talked a lot about space being related to this poem. However, while searching I realized that many images of night skies were too bold or bright for what we were aiming for. This is the closest I could find so far to what I am looking for.

I definitely chose these images with the idea in mind that I wanted them to be very unsaturated and dark or unsaturated and very light. I did not want to have bright colors associated with this poem because it would take away from it. This is because again, the poem is meant to be fragile and subtle. It wants you to look at it twice and draw you in slowly. It is not something that hits you from across the room like a firework, but instead draws you in because you want to see it clearer. I have also decided on cooler hues. Warmer ones would denature the poem it is being used for, and thus take away from the overall broadside.

Being a visual learner like myself, I am naturally very excited to be starting the Image as Text part of the Final Project. I decided to choose 3 relatively simple images because I am going into a pretty large amount of depth as far as image manipulation goes, however, they represent the feelings and transmit the information I want the viewer to collect.  They say “a picture means a thousand words” and I completely agree; the stimulation one can accumulate from a visual image is definitely earth-shaking, especially to non educated viewers.  Here is the poem by Regan in Chris Arigo’s Class:  (not quite titled yet) “The way you sat, arm slung across my scuffed leather headrest, your hand shaping the wheel of your ‘84 Volkswagen Rabbit, and the way my fingers caught in the ridges of the volume knob when Chicago came bursting to life on the speakers; it was as if we’d known each other our whole lives and driven that way countless times before, down that same stretch of highway, in that same dirty sundress, following the same finger of light. our solitary corona clutching the chipped yellow paint.”  Wanting to possibly use the realistic factor of photography, my friend Jordan Nicholson gave me a a photo he took one snowy morning of a road.  The act of choosing a photograph is safe in itself, as the client perceives it easier and understands it for what it is.  I chose a snowy road because although the poem comes off as lovey-dovey, there is still the negative uncertainty of the future.  The second image I chose was the outline of hands holding each other.  The initial insertion of an illustration opens up almost endless possibilities, so I went for one of the most minimalistic images of hands holding that I could find.  Using this illustration continues the realistic concept although it gives the viewer a more emotional feel, the negative space leaves more to the imagination of the viewer and promotes ambiguity to the degree of detail.  Lastly, an image of a painting.  A collage of colors can mean a lot to the person viewing it, and I wanted to set the mood right off the bat with this image.  The feelings Regan and I developed from this poem was warmth, yet doubtfulness, along with of course, love.  A collage of these earthy, redish yellowish hues set the mood pretty close to what we felt reading the poem.  I think these 3 images capture best the depiction of this poem, and although these are just tiny sprouts, they will grow into a great flower.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dragoart.com%2Ftuts%2F7180%2F2%2F1%2F44523%2Fhow-to-draw-holding-hands-step-12.htm&h=0&w=0&tbnid=pc93e3dJXkT6uM&zoom=1&tbnh=244&tbnw=206&docid=csv1WYKxfvV61M&tbm=isch&ei=7LRtVJvpFNHYiQKG34HwAw&ved=0CBAQsCUoBA

https://www.google.com/search?tbs=sbi:AMhZZivz2qKmhAqc8q8kkbD6Niv9niOQRXbEo-OpqZw_1wlMedODSJB4qvW7bXAG3My8xTWnrR9eEwxDDC3b0gy5pi4KNbIKn6p_1zu2kfmjQaoE3aHk3YIb7bwBuXy6O8YN0RBw3M1kBn-RJYhakMIi6inEa7Q1Kpv3kJefN34bDMK2Ch-E8lIgWx1B0DiiQRx6_1wIqtmM8jAHkHMd5YE4b5R3-iEqZ3bZw_1fGYp_1XiFWhkxDBVHi5wJCuKKVcOf96BRStKk0tWMP6WaKzYv2djjRCfHt1Kl0z0Ydp5sz23wSrcO1boVahxNnHxoHAArJvSVfc2hVW3gulTlFwfiTE4sRAIjeZpxgf8trz8_1aEW4HE1L1T4_1lK6R9REI3aOO7ZQYNrDwbPzNIwGiD67YpthkGoh1MnqXBqTPh6YBZ4_18X-Kb7uUCsxmF6lebBU4q5WYftm1HdaOD95hF0Zr34W0ZCCTm89YtsNhHw_1v0qFgIUO9eYuR2F3s3FmAr8erODaqxlO3Y07dyixDzsqtOz2Qt2sSvi8nKCxUd3_1QhTyEqrBPut1rjby8E5vST1poiGtDjPMmpDlfaytyHuhkNXFslOR1HSM9HCwzFJM5d7WVVDSFTyik7UMA5IY4h4UMw-VGi6Nlh0HDw4N0ejoApTOot-kIB9YLd1ayD3BODPq7SqC3gTzg6jEMTksk3IxaXVMSVCedighS_1VtlQahAvYHyqghKtJ2Xof4-DuC1KQRvQ8Wd8dH1KCh73ebL_1oV8c-1cG4p5XQUSep9ZUSWwFfw407GAuay-kG9MpcERV2dsvK4TIaQojaC91Ygra5Q0TEIr5uWOqPjFU-0iXEkvsjE6UtfyYFF0vMidZ_1Ul4B2ObEuXNPQKNhYNBxHQ99AhzEFXoUlOAJP9SZc_1qKggZ2mIe40qx36MqBn5UWBP5RUgk8xQLjcxMYqaaXpARXH9CL5bsA1nP2Sv5hounl3nTet691b6o7PUOYt2LZuiE12_1n9okfcSCyjJhzvbiszM8PuFzoU43JEy_1X4ihHxGCI7fiOpVk4aq-3r2d_1poqNblWAEYxJYzZj0jberLQ8nsTflJjPVkkHAICPsI15z3p289560Kh0NCJsheqPyfKaKCKFyybkoNsPHzrRJAHpxAvBHN4wCY279yKsLCHg3CBUaI1tyiSSUZ9nBj2WrLDpL82KKo93Ly4hMaYVzLMKw43LBMHcyCnjvuD5gfKVb8wwv-Yp_1nJ08lA88xMYqkz3u-NtdcEIxZ1ht-ziv1ZsVKj-k2BWeLFQGf3RckfR7Yo-P5u8SfaLIvm3lLe5Tyxi_1LGNkUn139FkloCyzBO6HQ0h1MH0BPqwy0oxK-N05UqNEp7BAHBX7FOY1-i7PhN-dQohRjqPP-uR1CRg&btnG=Search%20by%20image

A photo taken by Jordan Nicholson

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The Three images that I have chosen to represent Alice Tranum poem ” Down at the Bottom” are in some way related to one another. In her poem Alice talks about feeling really cold and trap at the bottom of an immense body of water. This could be interpreted in the picture of the ocean, depicting a notion of something coming up to the surface. At the conclusion of the poem, Alice mentions how this character feel saved and relieved to have a firm grip on the sand. Feeling somehow free of asphyxiation, feeling free after the struggles this character went through. This can be depicted in the pic above of feet walking on the sand, kind of feeling or being a peaceful environment. Alice also describes in her a poem a sense of being extremely cold, and this is why I chose the icy waters running down a stream.  In this case with this images, illustrations are very concrete and realistic. The are very realistic in how it illustrates the subject. At the same time with poems illustrations can be abstract and can become symbolic depending on the details added by the designer.

Poems in some ways are metaphors; it creates so many different meaning to what the actually text is referring. They are designed to be self interpreted, same goes for images. An image may represent something entirely different than what the text is actually saying. It goes back and forth, they go hand in hand with all these options available to designers. It will be challenging to tie these three images together and to come up with a broadside that illustrates balance.

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These are the three photos that I thought would work well with the poem I am working on called “Seven” by Becky Sharpe. It is a little bit darker than most of the poem but finding pictures to represent it is quite easy. To start off with the blood stain. At on point in the poem it describes drying blood, and I thought to myself that a blood stained background for my broadside could really work. Thinking about Digital Transparency it could help it look more liked  dried blood if I were to change the opacity of the blood stain in certain areas of the broadside.

Next is the ceiling fan. Because the opening statement in the poem I fell like is the strongest I feel like adding in the ceiling fan that corresponds to the hands creates a narrative interplay as it tells how this story is being told by the opening statement in the beginning of the poem. Messing around with the opacity of the fan somewhere i  the broadside could also work.

Onto the hands it goes something like this “Seven set of hands hanging from my ceiling fan” incorporating an illustration of a set of seven hands on the broadside could really add to the overall look and feel to it. Without the hand tying together that very powerful opening statement wouldn’t work without it. These three images really tie together what the poem is trying to say. Finding a way to balance these three images into my broadside will be very interesting.

These are the three images I’m focusing in on. One of the overlaying themes of the poem I’m working on, I feel, is the sort of thinness and how floaty dreams themselves are. One of the comments about the latest design I had made was that it was “like a cloud or a shadow,” which was a purposeful choice on my part, as I wanted to try to catch that same feeling with my design. As such, the photos I choose for it are supposed to reflect it.

The first image, titled Feather of Life, is a good example of the sort of mix of dream like surrealism with a sort of light, airy mood. Despite it not directly connecting back to the poem itself, I feel like it mixes well with the intended message and meaning of the poem. Also, I think it matches the mood, as said before.

The next image, just titled Bed sheets [Explored 2013-04-27], connects back to the concept of sleep, and also serves as a direct metaphor to the poem itself. The poem is about waking up from a dream, and has lines about the sheets and blades of light coming in through the window. Here, this is a photograph being used to literally represent the scene of the poem, almost being narrative interplay, though missing a few important parts to it, like an action being directly connected.

Finally, Cloud Shroud is going back to the original metaphor I had created using the clouds. This one is taking the poems text more literally, with slivers of light breaking through the dark clouds. I want to try to be more abstract with this design, in the same way that dreams themselves are abstract. I’m not sure if I want to use a photo, but I think these are good examples of photos that I would want to use.