Andy Cooperman Lecture

This crafts lecture was amazing! Cooperman was everything a lecturer should be: smart, funny, personable, etc. He made me realize the differences between our thinking processes. Although I only know for certain how my brain works and heard him tell us about his, I would assume that these differences generally span the mediums. Cooperman, as a designer, takes reference material and abstracts it or expands upon select elements. He has a love of nature and showed us several of his references, from wasp hives to porcupines to mold and fungus. His work repeats many of the lines found in nature and translates them into metal and stone.

My creative process, by contrast, starts with a story. I think of a scenario and then figure out the best way to represent it by orchestrating the elements of the scenario and then documenting them. As Paul has said many times over, I produce (over-produce as he put it). I have issues simply taking a photograph of a random event that I had no control over. Instead, I like to have my hand in almost every element of the photo: lighting, background, foreground, models, props, etc. I use reference material only for technique. My references are on particular lighting set-ups, color combos, compositions, blur techinique, and so on. Personally, I think it would be very difficult to put myself into his mindset and produce something in his chosen mediums nearly as well as he does. I have a much better appreciation now for the various artistic endeavors and the other people who create.