Some ideas to think about as you do research on Chairs and Artists who use Chairs in their work…
How do you go about researching chairs?
How do you narrow this broad subject?
What visual art resources do you have at your disposal at Skillman Library?
How do you find artists who have used chairs in their work or made work with Chair as the theme?
Why are Wikipedia and just googling images not a great way to begin your research?
How do we analyze how artists incorporate research into their practice?
She/her
1. I used ARTstor, through the library webpage. I then went through the digital art gallery. I used the search term “chair art”.
2. I knew I wanted to focus on sculpture rather than photography or collage, so I just toggled on the search options and clicked “sculpture.”
3. Not only do we have publications and prints available for works, but the website also has a large selection of websites for research.
4. I could have found a better way, but I just searched chairs, and if i found a work I liked, I clicked on the artist to see if they had other works or similar pieces to the one I found.
5. The results aren’t always accurate, and they aren’t verified. Using a verified source has better quality images and information.
6. I looked at their biography and past works as research into their practice. I was able to get a lot of information through their backgrounds and what they say their focus of the work is.
she/her
The library site has academic research tools that are appropriate to use when doing research on art, this time focusing on chairs. Along the research process, there are features that one can select (usually found near the left or right margin) to be able to narrow down the subject. In fact, clicking on one image may lead to other images similar to the one you clicked on originally. You will eventually know what you are specifically looking for the deeper you go into your research.
Through the library, there can be time scheduled to be able to see the work the school has possession of if interested. Some of the works that have come to be well known in the art world are here at Lafayette.
When beginning your research, googling images has such a large number of potential results from anything related to “chairs” which can be both relevant and irrelevant to what we are looking for. Also, images require detail and therefore high definition. There are only specific websites/resources that can provide accurate details of the original work.
Artists may have or have had a sketchbook or journal in which they have kept track of their thoughts or ideas regarding projects they were invested in. The different entries themselves may demonstrate the evolution of their work based on what they have adopted from other artists. Also, the works themselves are simple proof of how artists have evolved through incorporating their research into their works.
she/her