Great Quotes about Art.

Great Quotes about art:

David Sedaris from "Me Talk Pretty One Day":

"This was the art world I'd been dreaming of, where God-given talent was considered an unfair advantage and a cold-blooded stare merited more praise than the ability to render human flesh. Everything around me was art, from the stains in my bathtub to the razor blade and short length of drinking straw I used to cut and ingest my speed. I was back in the world with a clear head and a keen vision of just how talented I really was."

"The art world was our conceptual oyster, and we ate it raw."

"...we comforted ourselves by blaming a population so brainwashed by television that they couldn't sit through a simple two-and-a-half-hour performance piece without complaining of boredom and leg cramps. We were clearly ahead of our time but figured that with enough drugs, the citizens of North Carolina would eventually catch up with us."

Welcome to my Fractal

Welcome! If you are reading this blog, then you have most likely been linked to it or informed of it my myself, my email, my website, or some extremely wise graphic designers who have chosen to read it. To them I say "thank you," and welcome you to the wonderful world of Amarides. (www.amarides.com)

This blog is devoted to my thesis, which as of today, I have titled the "Kaleidoscopic Fractal of Mortality Design."

To those of you who do not know me, I am a graduate student at the Pratt Institute of Art working on my MS in Communication Design, have one final semester before I enter the "real world," and am currently writing my thesis, which will be adapted and applied into a super-fantastic project next semester. On a relevant note, theses will be on display next December at the Pratt Manhattan survey and next May at the Pratt Show. Look for me, I would love the opportunity for us to be formally introduced.

That said, this blog will serve to log all of the needed information and discoveries that come about this summer as I am writing. Also to organize my gillions of thoughts and piles of information regarding my topic - mortality design.

So let us begin at the beginning, for blog / day 1. "Kaleidoscopic Fractal" I recently discovered online and was very intrigued by the idea. I am rather fond of Kaleidoscopes, I like the way they distort the world around us, and seem to be ever changing, and alter each shape and viewpoint differently depending on the lighting. A "Kaleidoscopic Fractal" is officially, according to reference.com, "a design form consisting of a series of everchanging shapes and colors sensitive to their initial conditions and grown in a non-linear fashion." The phrase was coined by the artist Willow Hemphill in 1996.

I feel that Mortality Design, which is what I am calling my topic, and the "Kaleidoscopic Fractal" inter-relate because all of design is affected by time (mortality, death, aging, decomposition, etc), and is ever-changing, evolving, creation to destruction, etc. Therefore, the idea of a "Kaleidoscopic Fractal" is an interesting way to view the mortality of design because design (which can be referenced to life is general) is affected by the designer's start / background / past, and in effect is altered by everything it comes into contact with along the way. (IE "sensitive to [its] initial conditions") Great design is never linear, passes through many different changing stages, and if truly revolutionary, can be adapted to and evolve for the future.

And so there it is. I am considering adapting this into my portfolio / website / self-promotional materials / and thesis.

"The Kaleidoscopic Fractal of Amarides."