An Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog! My name is Molly and I am a senior at BASIS Scottsdale high school. This blog that you’ve stumbled over will be a way in which I will document my experience during my Senior Research Project.  For a period of ten weeks beginning February 8th, I will be posting weekly updates on my various shenanigans as well as many pictures of art.

Despite the long-winded title of my blog, my Senior Research Project will deal with a deceptively simple topic: art. However, a caveat to this is that my main focus will be the relationship between art and people on a large, public scale.

Anish Kapoor's Cloud Gate is a well-known piece of public art.
From cityofchicago.org

Considering my love of visual art, it’s not too surprising that I’m taking this opportunity to explore further in-depth with the concept. However, I am fascinated by art outside of the environment of a museum and not a little bit unfamiliar with the significance and interactions between the public and pieces made for it. Thus, my project is going to be a combination of documentation and research: I will both examine public art in my local area of Phoenix, Arizona (mainly sculptures, murals, or statues) and volunteer at the I.D.E.A. Museum in Mesa. In addition, I plan to contact public artists within my community to examine the functionality and process of creating public art. Through these means, I hope to gain a better understanding of the concept of public art and general attitudes towards it. In current circles of scholars, the idea of public art is ambiguous, but through my project, I will address distinctions between art forms such as propaganda, advertisement, vandalism, and murals, and whether any of them fall under the notion of public art.

The I.D.E.A. Museum in Mesa, Arizona.

As stated previously, my research site will be the I.D.E.A. Museum in Mesa, Arizona. This museum caters towards both the artistic and scientific impulses of children and features the artwork of many public artists within its exhibits (much of which will be featured in this blog). There, I will attempt to glean the general attitudes towards public art from museumgoers, both children and adults. Considering that children tend to be the most brutally inventive and honest of all, the results should be interesting. 

Overall, my goal during my Senior Research Project is to expand my preconceived knowledge of art as well as explore and learn more about my community. I hope you will join me on my journey.