Five Images (or Objects) and Their Stories
exploring: 5 images (or objects) + their stories
“In devising a story, therefore, the first thing that comes to mind is an image that for some reason strikes me as charged with meaning, even if I cannot formulate this meaning in discursive or conceptual terms. As soon as the image has become sufficiently clear in my mind, I set about developing it into a story; or better yet, it is the images themselves that develop their own implicit potentialities, the story they carry with them. Around each image others come into being, forming a field of analogies, symmetries, confrontations.
Italo Calvino
We all have our own visual archive: online bookmarks of inspiring images, a digital image bank, a treasure box of photos and clippings, images preserved in the “deep storage” of our memory, images pinned on the office or studio wall. These images carry “implicit potentialities.” They are idea spaces. They hold a seeing and knowing, and as makers and creative thinkers we must find ways to plot the intricacies of this composite world.
Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun magazine, refers to his office wall as his “wailing wall,” which displays the “graffiti of his inner life.” This exercise invites you to find connections among images (or objects) you are attracted to and collect. These images (or objects) can be inspirational references that offer confident echoes of possibility, comfort images as emotional landmarks, current information you need to look at now, or a resource for ideas you are building.
Choose five images (or objects) that inform your working process.
When and how did you stumble upon these images (or objects)?
What do you relate to in them?
Describe what is relevant to an appreciation of these images (or objects).
Do they tell stories?
How have these images (or objects) served your growth as an artist?
For example, have they helped you find a stylistic visual language or figure
out certain formal or conceptual issues?