Sometimes a work of art is like a Rorschach test in that people see in it what they want to see. My brother in law asked me to design a flier for his wife’s birthday party. It was a psychedelic Sixties theme party so I made the invitations look like little psychedelic rock concert posters. I took a photo of his lovely wife Ann taken at her daughter’s recent wedding and combined it with a black and white snapshot of her as a five year old child. I put the image of her as a kid in her hands so that she appears to be holding a doll of herself.
I titled the flier, Anniepoloosa, A Celebration Of All Things Annie and the idea was Ann was a big star who was photographed at a fan convention holding a doll of herself made from when she was a child star. But when my brother in law’s brother saw the poster he said, “It’s Ann holding onto her youth.”
I never thought of that and that’s just as good a description of the piece than my original intent, maybe even better. That kind of audience interpretation is fine, maybe even desirable, but other times it can be annoying.
I titled the flier, Anniepoloosa, A Celebration Of All Things Annie and the idea was Ann was a big star who was photographed at a fan convention holding a doll of herself made from when she was a child star. But when my brother in law’s brother saw the poster he said, “It’s Ann holding onto her youth.”
I never thought of that and that’s just as good a description of the piece than my original intent, maybe even better. That kind of audience interpretation is fine, maybe even desirable, but other times it can be annoying.
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