As the Count High progesses onwards, and as the numbers come floating back, the ideas that people come up with are always surprising and interesting to note. One large section of contributions are the “I could never have made anything that good” artworks.
Of those, and including every other, there are strange recurring themes which continue to pop up in the art works. I’ve shown some of the pieces so far (and will continue to do so) but for the most part, entries have been kept hidden - except when the artist publicly displays their piece elsewhere, which is, of course, always welcome. The point I’m hoping to eventually make is, for the most part the artworks have been created individually, with no input from myself. These individual creations, made by artists all over the world, they all connect in strange and unexpected ways.
One of the most amusing ways is food. One of the first images received back was a food picture and since then there have been at least two others of food. Another way they connect is pictures of space - the very first number artwork submitted was of space and since then, other space images have been returned. That’s not including generally dark images (the space ones are predominately black, you see) there are more which include shadows and silhouettes.
And speaking of dark images, there have been a fair slew of white images as well. Some of them are simple - the number on a white background, others use the white with highlights, to give the white space a more textured appearance. Along with the simple white, there have also been generally simple images, with the number unadorned with fancy graphics or renderings. Conversely, there has also been complex images made up of many parts.
And speaking of many parts, some people feel the need to repeat the number, not twice or three times, but many, many times all over their work. One artwork uses the number well over a dozen times. Others, not so much, but still in many different ways over the piece.
Other unexpected repeating themes are: grass and plants; The numbers usually have grass growing over them, but sometimes are inside plants, or growing. Water; Used in conjunction with plants (on occasion) sometimes the number is near water, on water, or even underwater. Where there is large masses of water, frequently there is a sunset; quite a few images are set against a backdrop of the setting sun. Which, of course means you can see the sky; a recurring theme is for the outdoors numbers to show the sky in the artwork. And of course, where there is water, plants and sun, you’re likely to find animals. Though few of the images connect in all of these ways, one or two elements leak into other pieces and all manage to work together some how.
The final theme, and one which has so far been small, but not the least interesting, is what I call the “message” number. These pieces contain the number, then elswhere in the image contain a message. Sometimes these are small messages “stay in school”, other times they are grand: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. I’m curious to see where this subsection of number artworks go. Will people join the project to get their “AIDS Research” or “Free T-Shirts to Poetry Writing Lesbians” message out there? Personally, it doesn’t bother me - so long as the piece follows the “rules”, ie. the number is the most prominent piece of the artwork.
The interesting thing about the works, the numbers and the various responses is the variety. It wasn’t until I went through the artworks received and noted the similarities that I realised how many they all had. That said, this is not an endorsement to use or ignore any of these - its just an observation. You are still free to do whatever you need to do in your piece to create the artwork you need to create. But it sure is interesting, and I can’t wait to see what else comes along in the future.