Short Story Fair Project

For this project students were asked to create an artistic piece that was alluring, captivating, provocative, and represented the short story read by the student. There were no specific guidelines as to what type of art had to be used to represent the story. Freedoms such as this one, allowed for a range of creativity. This piece would then be accompanied by others in a Short Story Fair, where peers would be able to view and hopefully take interest in the story that the piece was representing. 

The piece that I created was a representation of the story Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by, Joyce Carol Oates. My initial thought was to create a trailer, but that idea was taken by another student so I was forced to think outside my usual idea box. I then remembered that in literature, one of the most powerful tools is one'e lens. I decided that I would do a charcoal drawing of an eye, and surrounding the eye would be the quote that I felt would provoke thought and interest. That quote was,"Her name was Connie." To accompany the image, I went back to one of my earlier ideas of creating a soundtrack. I combined quotes from the story with different songs that fit the tone of the story at different moments. To listen to audio, the viewer would simply put on the headphones that were coming through the pupil of the drawing and push play.

I could this project be a bit challenging because it called for me to step out of my usual box of ideas. I spent hours combining through songs and riding and emotional roller coaster with Garageband. At  the end I was able create a multimedia product that was interesting, provocative, and stood different from the rest.

The Soundtrack can be listened to below.