When words are exhausted and photos won’t suffice, let the imagination run wild with drawing. Because there are so many interpretations of growth, I decided to look to others about what they initially imagined about the word. Take a look at what some of my peers think of growth:
Participants diligently working on their doodles:
Growth by Bobby Broddus
It is common to first think of what you relate to and know a lot about. Human growth, shown through the comparison of child and adult, seemed to be a major theme that happened…
- Growth by Jane Mahoney
over…
Growth by Justin Liberta
and over…
Growth :3 by Mackenzie Justvig
and over again.
Growth by Unknown
Another theme occurred with plant growth. While it shares similar characteristics with human growth, a plant could stand alone in this case because it is a well known symbol of growth and life compared to the many symbols associated with a single child or adult.
Growth by Kiara Stewart
Kiara chose to draw extreme growth. Her myriad of branches show growth at an extreme.
Growth by Unknown
This artist believes a simple representation of a tree illustrates growth.
Growth by Nick Labate
Nick’s drawing, however, baffles me. How can a line mean growth? Well, we are dealing with art students, so let’s examine. The purpose for my study of growth comes from the Line assignment. Nick could simply be connecting the two. That would make sense as a quick first thought.
Another explanation, though very much more developed could be the idea of growth in a scientific or economic way. When a scientist goes out to observe and research something, there is a title: growth of ____. Even if there is no growth in the data, the purpose of the observation is present in the title. The connection between growth and scientific method could be another explanation for this simple purple line. I don’t believe I will fully understand because I’m not sure that Nick fully understands why he drew a line. Who knows?
It is interesting to compare the images here collected from peers about growth to the image search I previously conducted through Google. The images online were so economically and scientifically inclined. Graphs everywhere. But the college mind seems to differ from the internet, at least the business end of the internet (I wouldn’t say the same for social media). College students don’t concern themselves with business related growth, but instead think of plant life and human development.
Jill Mullen | Studio:Research 