WP3: Final Draft

Author's note

In the final writing project, I was faced with a challenge of either choosing to write a rhetorical analysis of my sculpture or a letter addressed to my sculpture. Of course I picked the letter to switch up my writing style. This writing assignment was the same as the other but tweaked a little bit. These differences between the first two writing projects and the last one were that we didn’t get to choose what we wrote about and we were working with sculptures instead of pictures or comic strips. The part about the art sculpture made me uneasy and a little stressed out. This is because I have never personally worked with art objects and didn’t even know any general information about art, so this put me at a stump. When I was told what art object I was going to be doing, Fallen Dreamer, I “googled” it to find something about it. To my surprise I found a great variety of thing, from the author to the sculpture itself. But this still didn’t help me find enough information about it to make a clear argument.

In the end I decided to write the letter to Fallen Dreamer. There were two reasons why I switched it up from the previous writing assignment. One, because I am horrible at writing rhetorical analysis, it is obvious from my previous writing assignments. Two, I felt the letter would be easier and I might get a better grade.
What made me have the confidence in my decision to right the letter instead of the rhetorical analysis was my one-on-one conference, where we talked about my sculpture. During this session I gained many more new and different perspectives for the development of my letter. I decided to focus on a very descriptive observation about my sculpture and through these observations filter both my observations and reflections through a specific conceptual paradigm, intensification.

By most accounts, my first draft was incomplete. Although I felt that I had developed a strong introduction by developing in my letter what I was going to be talking about and presented a little bit of cultural context, I was unsure how to apply the intensification and conclusion of my letter and still make it sound conversational. I wasn’t too worried about my conclusion in my first draft because I knew I was going to have two peer reviews, a second rough draft, and a final draft to complete my letter. But to my surprise we had a snow day and so we didn’t have class on the Tuesday of our first peer reviews. This started to worry me I knew I had a pretty concrete first draft but that conclusion and some parts in the body I wanted feedback on.

All in all I got my final draft done and thought it was pretty decent. I changed my conclusion to summarize what I talked about and ending with thanking my sculpture and cherishing him for his time that I spent with him. In the introduction I added what I was going to be talking about in the letter and in the body it mostly stayed how it was but I rearranged some of the information. I think from the three writing projects it helped me on my grammar, sentence structure, and ideas of how to write rhetorical analysis. I think this class will definitely help me in the rest of my three years of college.

Rough Draft

Statement of Purpose

Dear Fallen Dreamer:



I have been analyzing you for the past several weeks for my English class’s final writing project of the semester. You have given me a new meaning to art, not just sculptures but to anything you can evaluate. When I was first told I was going to be observing you I “googled” your name, and to my surprise something out of the ordinary came up. There was a power point show that the Sheldon Art Museum must have showed to a tour they had. It told me the basic information I needed to know. There was information about your artist, what you looked like, and some basic questions that I asked myself about you as an art object. These helped me get started with analyzing what I thought you were. We met in person sometime in late November, on a beautiful sunny afternoon. After several afternoons of observing you I want to articulate what I’ve been noticing. I also would like to discuss the argument I think you’ve been making. To end with I want to discuss your use of intensification.



From first impressions I thought you were just a head tilted at an awkward angle, but through many observations I became aware of more than just your head. I also noticed you looked like a sad and lonely head. I got the implications that you were sad from your narrow raised eyes brows, lined eyes, and slightly frowned under mouth. Another factor is the way you are facing and on the side of your face gave me the impression that you had maybe fallen or were dreaming of something harsh. The ridged indentions on the back of your head also intrigued me. When I first saw them I thought that maybe they were scratches or maybe you were whipped. These implications also lead me to the smooth leveled bottom of your neck. It seems to me that someone just sliced you at the head leaving just the head to be looked at. All of these inferences lead me to think that you had a sad life and therefore are a Fallen Dreamer.

Before this writing project I didn’t have much experience with art objects so every time I analyzed you I kept coming back to the question “What is art?” By the end of last week I developed an answer to that question. Art is produced using skill, which is “acquired by experience, study, or observations” in a creative fashion for the purpose of creating an aesthetically pleasing outcome (Merriam-Webster). It required some artistic skill to create you the way you are. The composition of the shapes, lines, and color of your appearance required some artistic skill, as did working with the bronze to construct you as a product. Your artist in particular, Tom Otterness, has been working with art sculptures for well over fifteen years, so some may say he’s an expert. He has played an important role in reintroducing narrative and figurative sculptures as a vital art form (Sheldon Sculpture Brochure). This statement makes me think that you are indeed more than just a head, but a head that tells a story.



You were aspired from the giant Olmec heads that were created by ancient Central American cultures well over 3,000 years ago. Many of these heads were fashioned in the round, portraying the human figure in squat but accurate details (ageless classical reproductions). You have very similar details to the Olmec heads created; a significant difference is the placement of your head and how you are made out of bronze and original Olmec heads are made out of solid casting stones.

In some of our pre-writing assignments we were asked to reconsider our art objects in question as an “intensification” of what we originally perceived it to be. Instead of seeing you only for your aesthetic value—a bronze head with significant detailed facial features and tilted on the side of your head—we viewed you through an exaggerated lens. With that said you could represent a number of things. The term Fallen could be described as “those people killed in war or battle, especially while fighting” and the term dreamer can be defined obviously as somebody who is absorbed by fantasies or unrealistic plans (word-dictionary). So, you as a piece of art could have been someone who was in war and fallen because you were daydreaming.

I also viewed you as an intensification of the natural environment in which you are located. You are placed directly in front of the Sheldon Art Museum and placed in the middle of the cement steps. From a distant look of your surroundings it is almost like you had fallen down in front of a castle. I get this idea because of the material the Sheldon Art Museum is made out of and the way the front of the building has huge-like pillars. When people walk by the museum it is almost like you are welcoming them to it. Since you are directly in front of it, it makes the people literally walk around you, but also look at you. I walked by the Sheldon yesterday when it was snowing indefinitely. I was thinking that I could feel your pain just walking through the snow. And yet when our class was analyzing our sculptures a couple weeks ago when it was extremely nice out I thought it wasn’t right for you to have such a sunken look on your face. So, really the environment reflects many perspectives of art. It can change the way you look or think about things.



Why is it that a simply object can be expressed in multiply ways? And why is it that our mind perceives things in such a way that they are totally different from what other people think? These are things that I wanted to get off my chest, and express to you. You have been an extremely superior listener. I would like to say thank you for making my experience for my final writing project intriguing and out of the ordinary, but it also helped me understand art from many different perspectives. Analyzing you has also made me use my imagination to its full potential. Our time together has made many memories, and I appreciate that you were the one to cherish them with me.


Sincerely Yours,




Kelsey Vesely
Student, Observer, Friend


Work Cited

"Art." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. Accessed 7 Nov. 2009 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art.

Olmec. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Olmec Colossal Head. Ageless Classical Reproductions. Web. 7 Nov. 2009. .

Sculpture Brochure. Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. http://www.sheldonartgallery.org/photos/graphics/sculpturebrochure.pdf.
Tom Otterness. Artnet. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .
Tom Otterness. New York Times, 22 Sept. 2006. Web. 7 Nov. 2009. .

WP3: Rough Draft

Dear Fallen Dreamer:

I have been analyzing you for the past several weeks for my English class’s final writing project of the semester. You have given me a new meaning to art, not just sculptures but to anything you can analyze. When I was first told I was going to be analyzing you I googled your name, and to my surprise something out of the ordinary came up. There was a power point show that the Sheldon Art Museum must have showed to a tour they had. It told me the basic information I needed to know. There was information about your artist, what you looked like, and some basic questions that I asked myself about you as an art object. These helped me get started with analyzing what I thought you were. From first impressions I thought you just a head tilted at an awkward angle. I also noticed you looked like a sad and lonely head. I got the implications that you were sad from your narrow raised eyes brows, lined eyes, and slightly frowned under mouth. Another factor is the way you are facing and on the side of your face gave me the impression that you had maybe fallen or were dreaming of something harsh. The ridged indentions on the back of your head also intrigued me. When I first saw them I thought that maybe they were scratches or maybe you were whipped. These implications also lead me to the smooth leveled bottom of your neck. It seems to me that someone just sliced your head off leaving just the head to be looked at. All of these inferences lead me to think that you had a sad life and therefore are a fallen dreamer.



Before this writing project I didn’t have much experience with art objects so every time I analyzed you I kept coming back to the question “What is art?” By the end of last week I developed an answer to that question. Art is produced using skill, which is “acquired by experience, study, or observations” in a creative fashion for the purpose of creating an aesthetically pleasing outcome (Merriam-Webster). It required some artistic skill to create you the way you are. The composition of the shapes, lines, and color of your appearance required some artistic skill, as did working with the bronze to construct you as a product. Your artist in particular, Tom Otterness, has been working with art sculptures for well over fifteen years, so some may say he’s an expert. He has played an important role in reintroducing narrative and figurative sculptures as a vital art form (Sheldon Sculpture Brochure). You were aspired from the giant Olmec heads that were created by ancient Central American cultures well over 3,000 years ago. Many of these heads were fashioned in the round, portraying the human figure in squat but accurate details (ageless classical reproductions). You have very similar details to the Olmec heads created; a significant difference is the placement of your head and how you are made out of bronze and original Olmec heads are made out of solid casting stones.

In some of our pre-writing assignments we were asked to reconsider our art objects in question as an “intensification” of what we originally perceived it to be. Instead of seeing you only for your aesthetic value—a bronze head with significant detailed facial features and tilted on the side of your head—we viewed you through an exaggerated lens. With that said you could represent a number of things. The term Fallen could be described as “those people killed in war or battle, especially while fighting” and the term dreamer can be defined obviously as somebody who is absorbed by fantasies or unrealistic plans (word-dictionary). So, you as a piece of art could have been someone who was in war and fallen because you were daydreaming.

I also viewed you as an intensification of the natural environment in which you are located. You are placed directly in front of the Sheldon Art Museum and placed in the middle of the cement steps. From a distant look of your surroundings it is almost like you had fallen down in front of a castle. I get this idea because of the material the Sheldon Art Museum is made out of and the way the front of the building has huge-like pillars. When people walk by the museum it is almost like you are welcoming them to it. Since you are directly in front of it, it makes the people literally walk around you, but also look at you. I walked by the Sheldon yesterday when it was snowing indefinitely. I was thinking that I could feel your pain just walking through the snow. And yet when our class was analyzing our sculptures a couple weeks ago when it was extremely nice out I thought it wasn’t right for you to have such a sunken look on your face. So really the environment reflects many perspectives of art. It can change the way you look or think about things.

I would like to say thank you for making my experience for my final writing project intriguing and out of the ordinary, but it also helped me understand art from many different perspectives. Analyzing you has also made me use my imagination to its full potential. Thank you again for being there and letting me examine you.

Sincerely Yours,



Kelsey Vesely


Work Cited

"Art." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. Accessed 7 Nov. 2009 from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/art.

Olmec. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Olmec Colossal Head. Ageless Classical Reproductions. Web. 7 Nov. 2009. .

Sculpture Brochure. Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, n.d. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. http://www.sheldonartgallery.org/photos/graphics/sculpturebrochure.pdf.
Tom Otterness. Artnet. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .
Tom Otterness. New York Times, 22 Sept. 2006. Web. 7 Nov. 2009. .

WP3: Statement of Purpose

Fallen Dreamer has many probable purposes, possible interpretations, and even more feasible contexts. To construct a successful letter to my given sculpture, there are loads of factors including context, audience, observations, and reflections on what I observed. I will need to filter both my observations and reflections through a specific aesthetic-conceptual paradigm to go about writing my letter. Also in my letter I need to address either intensification or negativity. I think that there is some discrete point that the artist wanted to get across when creating this piece of artwork, but the Fallen Dreamer itself has many possible meanings that are open for interpretations. Setting up a letter is different than doing a rhetorical analysis on something. I would like to set up my letter so that my initial thoughts of the sculpture are first and then the historical content and about the author, after that I would like to talk about either the intensification or negativity of the art, and lastly tell what my final thoughts are about the sculpture.

For the final writing project three we are dealing with art sculptures. The art sculpture I was assigned is name Fallen Dreamer. My particular piece of art was built in 1995. The sculpture was designed by American Tom Otterness. He was born in 1952 in Wichita, Kansas and now lives and works in New York. He has a well-known reputation for figurative art. Otterness has played an important role in reintroducing narrative and figurative sculptures as a vital art form. He has art published all over the world from Nebraska all the way to Madrid, Spain. Some of it in indoors while others is in parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and of course museums. His sculptures are filled with multiple meanings and allude to sex, class, money and race.

For any writing project the audience is the same, but in the case of my letter there is also the sculpture who is an audience member. So, when writing a letter to my sculpture there are multiple audience members such as, the sculpture, anyone on the UNL campus at the time I read my letter to the sculpture, and of course my teacher. There are also the people who view my letter on the blog post. I hope the outcome of my letter to my sculpture let’s not only me think differently about the ways in which art work, but also other people that read my letter online.



A picture is worth a thousand words, or in this case a sculpture is worth a thousand words. In previous class sessions we talked about the John Cage’s experiment on sounds. The point of the class was to think twice about what art really is in the confines areas of a museum or in the wide open spaces outside. For our particular writing assignment all the sculptures are outside and so they can be analyzed at different ways and angles. For example, if someone was viewing my sculpture in front of the Sheldon Art museum at night versus in the day time they may get outcomes. This is the way that I will analyze the sculpture for my letter to it.

work cited.

Olmec. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Sculpture Brochure. Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2009. http://www.sheldonartgallery.org/photos/graphics/sculpturebrochure.pdf.

Tom Otterness. Artnet. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Tom Otterness. 29 Nov. 2009. Web. .

Tom Otterness. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

WP3: historical context

My particular piece of art of built in 1995. The sculpture was designed by American Tom Otterness. He was born in 1952 in Wichita, Kansas and now lives and works in New York. He has a well-known reputation for figurative art. Otterness has played an important role in reintroducing narrative and figurative sculpture as a vital art form. He has art published all over the world from Nebraska all the way to Madrid Spain. Some of it in indoors while others is in parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and of course museums. His sculptures are filled with multiple meanings and allude to sex, class, money and race.

According to his biography on his website his sculptures depict, among other things, huge pennies, pudgy characters in business suits with moneybag heads, helmeted workers holding giant tools, and an alligator crawling out from under a sewer cover. The main theme of his work seems to be the struggle of the little man against the capitalist machine in a difficult and strange city. His aesthetic can be seen as a riff on capitalist realism and blends high and low, cute and cutting. On his website he gives specific instructions on how he thinks of his ideas. He writes everything down and goes from there. Here are the steps he takes: first is the idea, then the drawing on paper, then the wire armature, after that he makes a clay model, hires the foundry, polich art work, makes the rubber model, then the wax model, the gated wax, then the ceramic shell, the ceramic shell full of metal, rough casting, finishing the bronze, and finally the patina (coloring of the bronze). There are a lot of steps in the processes of making an art object.

I looked through pictures of some of his other pieces of art work which can be found on his website. Most all of his sculptures are made out of bronze material and mostly of people. He was the first artist in 2005 to make a humpty dumpty balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. He also made a really cool playground set out of bronze that is life-size and children can actually play on it.

He was at one time in his life a guard at the American Museum of Natural History in New York; he was impressed with the giant Olmec heads created by ancient Central American cultures. Fallen Dreamer has also been seen as a statement on “the fragility of today’s icons and heroes.” Tom is known to make more than one of the same sculpture. There are three different Fallen Dreamers.



The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian civilization living in the tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico. They dated roughly back to 1400 BCE to about 400 BCE. They were the first Mesoamerican civilization and laid many of the foundations to follow. The most familiar aspect of the Olmecs is their artwork, particularly the aptly-named colossal heads. In fact, the Olmec civilization was first defined through artifacts purchased on the pre-Columbian art market in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Olmec artworks are considered among ancient America's most striking and beautiful, and among the world's masterpieces.


work cited.

Olmec. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Sculpture Brochure. Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden, n.d. Web. 24 Nov. 2009. http://www.sheldonartgallery.org/photos/graphics/sculpturebrochure.pdf.

Tom Otterness. Artnet. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

Tom Otterness. 29 Nov. 2009. Web. .

Tom Otterness. Web. 30 Nov. 2009. .

WP3: pre writing assignment 3

On Thursday during class I experienced a new form of music self-possessed by Wayne Coyne which he called “Zaireeka”. I found it to be intense and extremely interesting. Before class I had never heard or done something that unusual, but it changed my perception of music and what it really was. When I think back to it I still cannot completely understand what it was meant to do for our art sculpture, but I think it did point out things that I should consider with art objects. The most important thing I think I got out of the situation was that when you join together more than one element the way Wayne Coyne did you can picture several different things and I think that is a big thing to consider when looking at our chosen art objects.

In last class session it challenged us to consider an art-object as an intensification of its traditionally-conceived identity. My sculpture, Fallen Dreamer, can definitely be thought of as an intensification of the innate surroundings in which it is found and the intensification of an art object. Since the art object is indeed a sculpture and it is a three dimensional object viewers can observe from whichever viewpoint they can see it at. As an art object, this piece could take part in a variety of aspects. From the many perspectives the observers can clearly see that in each way they look at it, that the surroundings impacts what it is like for the Fallen Dreamer. In this case, it is the atmosphere that helps expose this piece of art as an intensification of an art object. The environment is more than the natural part of life but it also is the sculpture, Fallen Dreamer.

Looking at the sculpture, Fallen Dreamer, and the environment surrounding it seems at peace, but yet not. If the sculpture itself was of an upright head with a smile on its face it may seem at peace, but what makes me say peaceful is the environment in which it is in. Even though it is in the middle steps in front of the Sheldon Art museum it still has a sense of peace. I think this because it is surrounded by a clean environment and grass is just next door. Fallen Dreamer is obviously representing a human head and a man from that due to the lack of hair. When looking at the sculpture anyone can relate to the man on a sad gloomy day. As if you are almost half asleep or something just went terribly wrong, but whatever is going on you can relate to the man. I imagine that this specific spot in which the sculpture is located gets a lot of attention because it is in the direct path of people that want to go into the museum. Being that the material chosen was bronze, I fell that this is designed to be of an older era, maybe 1800’s time frame in which this was meant to portray. From “Zaireeka” it has made me think of the surrounding of Fallen Dreamer to understand different arguments it is trying provide.