Creativity from Without

     Art is often described as a visual expression of one's innermost thoughts; a physical representation of one's soul delicately spread or haphazardly splattered upon a canvas of choice.  It is what the artist feels and has translated in a way that can be made public.  Essentially, art is the artist that produces it.  This may definitely be true in some cases.  During the artistic movement known as Expressionism, artists produced works depicting an utterly subjective perspective, often using violently distorted figures and images to transmit personal moods and ideas.  This is a prime example of creativity from within.  However, not everything an artist creates is inspired by himself.  In fact, many artists often come across any number of events and/or objects outside of themselves that motivates them into some form of artistic expression.

     This is creativity from without.  It is inspiration derived from the any given source outside of oneself.  In several works by contemporary artist, Kim Abeles, she pulls inspiration from normal, commonplace  situations and engineers pieces of great ingenuity.  Inspired by a green initiative within Harvard-Westlake School, Kim Abeles visited the location and created Paper Person, as shown in the image to your left.  This macabre figure is a persona comprised from one day of paper trash at Harvard-Westlake School.  It's size is symbolic of the amount of paper thrown away in one day.  Abeles saw the amount of waste occurring and used this as a basis for her design. 

     Although the design is simple, the significance behind Paper Person is profound.  Abeles had no need of pouring out her heart and soul.  She simply took stock of her surroundings, understood the detrimental situation of human waste and consumption, and put it all together forming a larger than life reminder of what we as a society can do to protect the earth.  I find this piece a powerful example of design.

Illuminated Fig Leaves - Kim Abeles