#fully generic pic vs arbitrary decision vs deliberate decision vs our of my hands sorta bc its a portrayal of a real life dude | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

outerspace-iiinnerspace · 2 years ago

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one thing i think about on occasion was when i was in this art class in college and i was making a painting of an astronaut and the grad assistant was going around checking on people and looking at our projects and we were talking about mine and i said something where i referred to the astronaut as a he and she went "or she" and i was like "huh?" and she talked about how the astronaut didn't have to be a man, there are women astronauts too!

and i said yeah, that's true, but this is a painting of a guy, and she said it didn't have to be because one of the things about my subject was that because you can't see the face or tell the body type you could imagine anyone in that space suit, it's universal, and that's actually really powerful and that's why she liked my painting and and i was forced to say yeah but this is a man. its buzz aldrin. and i showed her the photo of buzz aldrin that i was basing the painting on.

#no moral to this story really i just think about it #i was intending it to be specific by making a copy of a certain photo of a known person #but she didn't recognize the photo so to her it could have been anybody and me saying it was a man was close minded in that case #intent vs interpretation clouded by the fact that its an actual photo and an actual guy #if i painted a generic spacesuit pic and decided arbitrarily it was a man and she said 'but it doesnt have to be' thats slightly different #because my arbitrary intent is roughly equal to an arbitrary interpretation #fully generic pic vs arbitrary decision vs deliberate decision vs our of my hands sorta bc its a portrayal of a real life dude #(not fully out of my hands because i still made the choice to paint him and not say jemison or tereshkova)#(but i am also not responsible for mr. aldrins gender)#but of course the viewer doesn't know what the heck i'm doing #unless i tell them tha painting's name which is 'buzz aldrin on the moon'#at which point if you say 'this is a painting of a woman' or 'this is universal and could be anyone' that's on you #i have given you all the info now interpret as you will

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