Blog 4: Let's Get Artsy
This week I chose to branch out a bit. I have realized that my past three blogs have been only written assignments
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<-- everybody who reads all of my written work
So I decided to try something new: art. I know what you are thinking; James is literally the worst at art! You are correct. Although I am, in fact, probably the worst artist out of the entire class, (probably even all my classes) I wanted to try something unique, and I felt like doing something out of the ordinary would allow me to actually have FUN putting my project together. DISCLAIMER: I completely understand that my cover it lacking in artistic ability. The drawing had actually looked pretty good during the pencil sketch (where you could actually see the techniques I had used and saw where they were used). I actually learned a lot by drawing this, such as drawing fire by using layered triangles and spikes. Granted, I ended up coloring over it in marker (this was the absolute biggest mistake ever), so the technique was basically thrown out the window
My cover focuses on a door made of money which opens up and lets fire seep through the opening. This furnace resembles the one Holmes built, and it is what he used to kill the girls he courted throughout the book. What was important about his furnace was not only the story of its creation (which took up a good portion) of the book, but also Holmes' drive to create the furnace. While a sister of one of his wives was in the furnace, Holmes said "He had to concentrate to hear the sobs from within. The airtight fittings, the iron walls, and the mineral-wool insulation deadened most of the sound, but he had found with experience that if he listened at the gas pipe, he heard everything much more clearly...It brought him a period of sexual release that seemed to last for hours" (Larson 296). This description provided a lot of description of the furnace's features, but it is the "sexual desire" that Holmes derives from the screams that motivated him to spend money and risk his career in order to hide such a nefarious machine (296). I added this to the cover mainly because it represents the death of the "single young women who had never even seen a city" that entered Chicago with hopes of leaving home and getting a job (11). Also, I wanted the center of the cover to represent aspects of both Holmes and Burnham since they are extremely prominent characters within the novel.
For Burnham, I tilted a silhouette of the Eiffel Tower. Burnham made it his objective to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" and make an architectural feat that would hopefully put Chicago on the map with other top-tier cities. This effect would eventually be fulfilled by the Ferris Wheel, but the first half of the book leads with the idea of toppling a wonder as great as the Eiffel Tower. In order to attain the symbolism of *toppling* Eiffel, I tilted the tower on the page so that it would fit behind the furnace.
The buildings on either side of the center vault are, sadly, white due to them actually being white in real life. I really wanted to color them in since they look kind of bland on their own, so I colored the windows grey just to make them look a bit more finished. One of them is on fire to represent the time that one of the buildings caught on fire around the time of the fair's opening. In addition to the firs building fire at the fair, others (such as in a cold storage building) that stood as a symbol of Burnham's passion for the fair's design. In fact, Burnham had made a "shanty" to live in while he was working on the fair (158).
<-- everybody who reads all of my written work
So I decided to try something new: art. I know what you are thinking; James is literally the worst at art! You are correct. Although I am, in fact, probably the worst artist out of the entire class, (probably even all my classes) I wanted to try something unique, and I felt like doing something out of the ordinary would allow me to actually have FUN putting my project together. DISCLAIMER: I completely understand that my cover it lacking in artistic ability. The drawing had actually looked pretty good during the pencil sketch (where you could actually see the techniques I had used and saw where they were used). I actually learned a lot by drawing this, such as drawing fire by using layered triangles and spikes. Granted, I ended up coloring over it in marker (this was the absolute biggest mistake ever), so the technique was basically thrown out the window
My cover focuses on a door made of money which opens up and lets fire seep through the opening. This furnace resembles the one Holmes built, and it is what he used to kill the girls he courted throughout the book. What was important about his furnace was not only the story of its creation (which took up a good portion) of the book, but also Holmes' drive to create the furnace. While a sister of one of his wives was in the furnace, Holmes said "He had to concentrate to hear the sobs from within. The airtight fittings, the iron walls, and the mineral-wool insulation deadened most of the sound, but he had found with experience that if he listened at the gas pipe, he heard everything much more clearly...It brought him a period of sexual release that seemed to last for hours" (Larson 296). This description provided a lot of description of the furnace's features, but it is the "sexual desire" that Holmes derives from the screams that motivated him to spend money and risk his career in order to hide such a nefarious machine (296). I added this to the cover mainly because it represents the death of the "single young women who had never even seen a city" that entered Chicago with hopes of leaving home and getting a job (11). Also, I wanted the center of the cover to represent aspects of both Holmes and Burnham since they are extremely prominent characters within the novel.For Burnham, I tilted a silhouette of the Eiffel Tower. Burnham made it his objective to "out-Eiffel Eiffel" and make an architectural feat that would hopefully put Chicago on the map with other top-tier cities. This effect would eventually be fulfilled by the Ferris Wheel, but the first half of the book leads with the idea of toppling a wonder as great as the Eiffel Tower. In order to attain the symbolism of *toppling* Eiffel, I tilted the tower on the page so that it would fit behind the furnace.
The buildings on either side of the center vault are, sadly, white due to them actually being white in real life. I really wanted to color them in since they look kind of bland on their own, so I colored the windows grey just to make them look a bit more finished. One of them is on fire to represent the time that one of the buildings caught on fire around the time of the fair's opening. In addition to the firs building fire at the fair, others (such as in a cold storage building) that stood as a symbol of Burnham's passion for the fair's design. In fact, Burnham had made a "shanty" to live in while he was working on the fair (158).
Hey James! Your first paragraph made me expect your alternate cover to be something horrendous, but it was actually really good! Stop being so hard on yourself :). Anyway, the cover was well made and interesting. For example, the door of money creating an opening for the fire was an interesting take on the furnace. It's also cool how fire can represent many things at the same time. You wrote that the fire is representative of the furnace that Holmes used to kill the women and literally the fire that burned down a building; however, it could also mean his sexual desire or the death of the women. Overall, your cover and analysis are great!
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