Alex's Head: A Senior Amplified Art Project by Kevin Van Dyke (2015)

In the Blink unit, I wanted to use my zentangle, which happens to sort of look like a face, into a mask. So I took a meditative picture of my friend, Alex, and put this mask on him. I then used my circular mandala as the eyes. Before I had begun putting the individual pieces of art together, I turned to Alex and told him, I'm going to make you look weird. And that is just what I think I did. Nothing too over-the-top, but weird enough that he can be like, Woah, what'd this kid do to me?

The word I chose from my free writes was Impact, as I like to think that what I do in the art realm makes an impact on the viewer, no matter how subtle or momentary. I'm hoping this made an impact on Alex. The sentences I chose from my free write to incorporate into the amplified piece is arbitrary and has nothing to do with the rest of the piece, but if I were looking for a metaphor, I'd probably say it has something to do with the overall learning, growing and developing process and taking into account all the things you do in life and weigh them against everything else you could spend your time on based on how beneficial in the long run they will be. How does that relate to the amplified piece? I'll tell you. Alex's head is getting bigger, therefore he is growing.