The Synarts Gallery

The Synarts Gallery

By: Tim Howard

The new art gallery, called Synarts Cotillion, at Scott Hall has many different artists amazing art work from some of the fine students of the University of Alabama. Some of this great art goes from still pictures, to paintings, and even to a bail of paper shreds. The two main pieces of art that stuck out the most in this exhibit is the still picture of the world war two veterans and the guitar. These two different forms of art will give you just a hint of the experience you will get to have coming to this amazing art gallery.
The first piece of art that you get to see when you first walk into the gallery is the still framed picture of the world war two veterans. The reason why you know that he fought during world war two is that because on his hat it said that he was from world war two. Whenever you first walk into it is one of the first pieces that you first get to see. All you see is his upper body, and all you think is “ok this guy fought in world war two, next piece of art.” Then as you keep on going into the art gallery, all you do is think more and more about the still framed picture of the world war two veterans.
You look at other pictures such as the four pictures of the horse, but all you can think about it is the veteran. Finally you decide to go back and look at it once again. You notice something that you did not notice the first time. The video shows many different ways of how role conflict and role strain can be bring a person down on a day to day basis. As the video shows that this woman who is writer, she also is a stay at home mother who keeps are of her child. In this essay I will discuss through her life as a stay at home mom and a writer how the stain of her role at work and her responsibility to her child can be very nerve-racking.
As I have said before this woman is a stay at home mom but she also has the responsibility to her work to write good articles and not to become so overwhelmed with her child at home. This can become a great role conflict because he knows that her child needs as much attention as it can get right now in its stage of life, but she has to take time out of her day in small chunks in order to keep her job as a writer. She says in the video that sometimes it is three in the morning that she is up to writing articles in order to keep her job at home as a mother and her writing career.
All of this work that this lady has to do puts a grand toil on her by the end of the day because of this, it causes a role strain on her. The role of being a mother is a big a challenge in itself on but having to work in a hoe type environment with a child who at most times is always looking for your attention can become a very stressful situation to be in. She shows this in the video as she has to feed her child and she even makes a work area for the child while she is typing away on her next news article.
Though all the pressures of being a mother and a writer can be stressful and put a role strain on you it can be done. Through persistence life can be great like this woman and you can get the best of both worlds. That is living with your child and still getting paid at a fair amount of money. You notice that the world war two veterans are not smiling. The picture automatically then reminds you of the “Mona Lisa” by Leonardo Davinci. This reminds you of the Mona Lisa because everyone wants to know why she does not fully smile. So you look at this war veteran man who is not smiling. You then ask yourself “What is he thinking about?” You start to stare into his eyes and you start to visualize him thinking back to the war as he going on to the shores of Normandy, fighting for the freedom that we all get to have. The war veteran lives for his friends for fallen, but also he lives for freedom. It amazes you how such an ordinary picture has so much of an amazing meaning behind it.
After you have gotten something great from this plain, black and white, ordinary still framed picture of world war two veteran, you can’t wait to see what is next to come. You then this smaller version of a guitar, but it doesn’t look like any guitar that you have seen before. All other guitars that you have seen always have a straight neck, but the tuning of the string area is turned back toward the wall. The first reaction you have is that “I want to play this guitar.” The reason being is because it is just so different from any other guitar. You also notice that there are only 4 frets and you know that that is a lot less than any normal acoustic guitar.
You look to the side and find a description saying that the artist, Anden Oben, based this piece of art off of a thirteenth century piece guitar made by Hans Frei of Turkey. As you keep thinking looking at it you notice the center of the guitar looks like the like a Catholic Church window. Then you look toward the back of the guitar and the way that it is shaped reminds you of an onion as the way it is shaped. It at first just looks like wood flooring. One piece put together by another, but because it is round it takes the outer shape of an onion.
Once you leave you think about how the two writers took there approach on there art. With the still framed picture of the world war two veteran it seemed that there was not much real effort put into it the art. Although because we knew through his hat that he was a world war two veteran we can relate what he could have through what he might have see compared to a veteran who fought during the Korean war. Also getting to talk to one of the other artist in the synarts, Laura Shill, She explained that the artist took some pictures of these world war two veterans and it was just one the person liked. This does somewhat bring the art down because there was no special meaning behind her art, but people make art come to life not artist in that people connect what they feel and what they think a piece of art means.
The second piece of art, the extravagant guitar seemed like that without a doubt had many hours put into to it and all of its art was very visual and easy to see were the artist was going with his piece. Talking to Scott Jarrett, another Synart artist, told me about this piece done by Anden Oben, I found out that he makes instruments for a living and also teaches in the music department. Unlike the still framed picture, Mr. Oben did build this piece of art and wanted it to look different from regular guitars basing off this older version of guitar. The way Mr. Oben did this is through the neck, the center piece that looks like a Catholic Church window, and the base of the guitar.
The Synarts art gallery is an amazing exhibit to go and see. It gives you a feel of some of the different artist around the University of Alabama. The still framed picture of the world war two veteran and the guitar is just giving you a taste of some of the m any amazing art in this exhibit. There are also other amazing art from abstract pictures to a bail of paper shreds. The exhibit is one o the many great new exhibits here in the capstone.