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 I would like to set up my letter so that my initial thoughts of the sculpture are first and then the historical content and about the author, after that I would like to talk about either the intensification or negativity of the art, and lastly tell what my final thoughts are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