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WHAT IS A CONCENTRATION

When I first learned that I was required to a enter a 16-piece concentration as a major portion of my AP Art Portfolio, I knew that it would be taking up some of my time. I was told to pick a theme and go with it. Well, of course I was stumped at first. I wanted to say something powerful, have a fun time making it, and make the time spent worth while.

I consider myself strong academically and artistically. That is, I score well in sciences and mathematics, but I also have a creative gift to express my thoughts artistically. These past few years, when deciding where I would go to college, a lot of people were suprised when I told them that I was pursuing an art major. There aren't too many people who end up at the top of their class and go on to art school, but it was a decision that I wanted to make. I take as much pride in my artwork as I do in my superior grades. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to illustrate the inner peace that I have found between both fields of thought.

LOGIC VERSUS CREATIVITY

I've always admired Leonardo da Vinci, the man of the Rennaissance, so I knew he would be included in it somehow. Then I devised two teams that would represent the stereotypical modern creative artist and the emotionless logical scientist. Note how the artists are in color and the scientists are in black and white. Neither team is meant to ultimately depict any ideal of either branch, but rather to provide an example of the extremes of the spectrum of thought processing. The two teams face a challenge. Their mission is to use their methods to figure out what the fruit of knowledge (symbolized by the apple) is all about. I decided on the apple, because it is associated with school as well as Creation in the Bible.

Of course, each side appears to be successful until they meet up with each other to share their thoughts. Their ideas are so different that they cannot even successfully communicate with each other. Ha...my point exactly. Art and Science are very different, but what I am trying to say is that they don't have to be. A world based on only one would be absolute chaos. Every successful civilization in the history of mankind has shown strengths in both fields. Thus, absolute knowledge rests somewhere in the middle. This is what my concentration is about.

The Work Behind the Artwork


knowledge Art is a branch of investigative science that requires intense visual perception and hand and eye coordination. Knowlegde built purely on creativity cannot exist because of simple reality . Enough from me! Go and check it out yourself...

raflynn@art.wustl.edu