Blog 3

Walker
   Walker spends a great deal of time distinguishing between a Big Idea and and Artist's theme.  The Big Idea is a very abstract idea which may be hard to define in only words.  This is what I find useful about the article.  I always thought of art in terms of the theme rather than the Big Idea.  By thinking of the Big Idea, it allows me to look a little deeper into the purpose of the artwork and what it truly represents.
   One great flaw with this article is that, while never specifically stated, there is only one Big Idea for each piece of artwork or collection.  In his list of Big Idea's, I believe many of them can be represented in a collection of artwork.  For example, if I were to create a piece of artwork about my grandpa it would represent the Big Idea of family and its importance.  However, my grandpa has done many amazing things that I would consider heroic.  An entire art collection could be created on the heroics of any one family.  Unless this is considered one idea in Walker's perspective, then I would argue that most artwork has more than one Big Idea.

Barrett
   I found it very interesting that all age groups could decipher connotation and denotation with the various objects presented to them.  I really enjoyed the case study of The Game and all the different types of OSU and M*ch*g@n shirts which are in existence.  It will be very useful to understand how certain denotations lead to certain connotations.
   There really wasn't anything with this article that I disagreed with or had much of an issue with.  It would have been interesting to see him present an artwork or situation from a different culture instead of our own.  I feel like if the students had to decipher the Alabama v Auburn Rivalry, many students would not have been able to determine many connotations from the denotations since the culture is not well understood by the students.