Launching the Imagination – Constructing Meaning

        In chapter eight of Launching the Imagination, the title, "Constructing Meaning" kind of threw me. I wasn't quite sure how someone could go about constructing meaning and all the different ways one can do it. At the beginning of the chapter the author talked about iconography and how using it can create a variety of different meanings in a piece of art. One thing that I never really thought of was an audience. For things that I have created in the past, I never thought about what kind of audience my piece of art was for. I could relate, though, to the part about visual communication because I remember hearing in class about what messages a piece of art can give off to an audience, I just never really thought about the audience before creating the piece; it was always just an afterthought. Before reading this chapter I was familiar with the terms stereotype and clichés, but when reading about them in the book it was interesting how they related to art. Personally I am not a big fan of stereotypes and I only like clichés when they a funny, but I really liked that the book talked about how a shift in these things can cause upsets in our expectations. I liked that they can be used to challenge ourselves and the audience. In pervious art classes I have heard and learned about the purpose or intent of a piece, as well as, its context and the connections it can have, but learning how all these things form together was interesting. Along with clichés, I also like metaphors, especially when they are funny. Lastly, the chapter talks about postmodernism, which I thought was interesting to see how we went from modernism to postmodernism and how dynamic it is. At this point in my life, I guess I would describe myself as a postmodernist, but learning more about it and gaining more experience will only help me really define  where I am going.