I first turned to ARTstor and Oxford Art to research chairs because it was a helpful way to look at chairs in a more artistic way. It allowed me to search for works of art that included the use of chairs in it, or actually chairs themselves. ARTstor and Oxford Art were really beneficial to use because it enabled me to easily narrow my topic, while still having access to so many different examples of “chairs” in history.
I started rather broadly just typing in “chairs”, however, as I started finding specific topics that interested me such as “chairs painting” and “chairs photograph” I was then able to narrow my research. As I continued to find more photographs that I liked within those topics, I was able to continue narrowing my research until I found a chair/designer that really interested me.
Wikipedia and googling images are not the best way to begin researching because there is so much information that is on there that too many topics may come up when first searching for something. They may make narrowing the research more difficult, and in addition, will provide search results for all types of chairs not just in the art sense. Wikipedia also may not always have accurate information, which can then be misleading.
We analyze how artists incorporate research into their topics by studying their works and seeing what types of things inspired their work. Discovering whether or not someone else’s work or something else influenced an artist’s work can allow us to better understand their research process and how they went about incorporating it into their practice. In addition, if artists are often changing/adding to they work, that can also provide clues as to how they use research in their practice.
she/her