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 I would like to set up my letter so that my initial thoughts of the sculpture are first and then the historical content and about the author, after that I would like to talk about either the intensification or negativity of the art, and lastly tell what my final thoughts are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. .