My contribution to the group poster project was one I had worked on throughout the semester. I have always enjoyed sketching and any sort of art projects, so I was happy to do my own interpretation of the literary works we had read over the past three months. One of the readings stood out to me the most, however. When I read The Ruined Maid, I not only felt that I understood it, but I actually enjoyed it. It is an interesting concept- the idea of a girl giving up what we in contemporary society consider to be a sense of self-respect, and having her actually climb the social ladder in relative juxtaposition to that sacrifice. Anyway, when I first read it, I couldn’t help but think of the movie Pretty Woman (which I had never actually seen). When we had the Gender and Media assignment a month ago, I knew which work I would be doing. I enjoyed comparing the two depictions of prostitutes in society, and as I watched the film, I did some mindless doodling. what resulted was a picture of a woman in a victorian-style gown, who could pass off as a prostitute. In comparison, my next sketch was a minimalist sketch of Julia Roberts’ character in Pretty Woman, with my own twist. When we were assigned the poster project, I knew I wanted to submit those sketches as my own pieces of original art, as I had not attached them to any other assignment.
As a group, we came upon the subject of “The Art of Temptation”. We felt that it is a relatable topic, as we all face temptation in our everyday lives, and also are surrounded by advertising and public messages encouraging us to indulge in those temptations. Our first poster consisted of original pieces of art. The background was an abstract sketch done by Ryan. In the middle, we featured a picture of an apple which I had taken. We chose this to be the backdrop for the poster, as we felt the apple is a universal sign for sexuality and temptation universally. Throughout the poster, my sketches were scattered. By modge-podging our own works, so to speak, we unintentionally symbolized society’s varying views of what tempts us.
Along with the poster of original art was a “scientific” or “historical” poster. Three of us wrote about literature we had read throughout the semester, and tied them into our theme of temptation. In my case, I wrote about The Ruined Maid once again, and discussed the prostitute’s temptation to climb the social ladder, and to have the nice things she could only afford with such a lifestyle. Again, the back of the poster was the picture of the hand holding the apple. We did this to tie in the two posters, and to make it clear that the underlying theme of our projects was human beings’ natural tendency to want to give in to what tempts us.
