My edtitions for this trimester looked at both nature and industrialization, as well as personal identity. I started out this class with a linoleum print of a sunset in the background and a silhouetted tree line in the foreground. This edition had no real deep symbolic meaning; it was just what I wanted to start the class with. After a brief look at the natural, I moved on to Industrial with an edition of a phonograph.
In a historical aspect the Industrial Revolution was a time of both light and dark. We were developing new forms of technology and creating a new societal format. With this shift in economical priorities and societal changes, the working class sank into poverty. The phonograph, to me, both represents the music of the new, as well as the price that it took on the working class.
My next two editions looked at personal identity, starting out with how consumerism can distort who we perceive ourselves to be. This edition was an etching of a man whose face was half mad out of logos including the Nike, Mercedes-Benz, and Apple Logos. The edition represents who our society has to have the latest and greatest of everything, and how it starts to overtake us and becomes who we are. In my next edition I took a look at my own identity. I did a linocut self portrait with a checkerboard-style background. The background shows that at my innermost being I am a perfectionist and have to have every detail in its right place.
For the end, I took another look at nature with an edition of the growth rings of a tree. This edition represents that life is both simple and complex. We start out our lives simply, represented in the edition by the growth rings, and continue to grow. As we grow, our lives get more and more complicated, represented by the cracks in the growth rings, yet life still manages to retain that simplicity.
