"knee high by the fourth of july" kyle bauer

     Walking into the art show on opening night, I was expecting to be blown away by an extravagant piece of art. I did not think much of this piece at first glance. After giving myself time to look at it, I found it fascinating that the entire structure was made of plaster and wood. The poles appear to be made out of metal and the tips of the poles appear to be made out of wood. The sculpture overall has leading lines that point the viewer down to the base of the structure. The base is made of wood that is not painted or altered in a fancy way. It is very raw and natural. The base is composed of L-shapes. The structure is made up of geometric shapes and it seems very clean cut. Because the all the poles did not sit completely straight up, it created a little bit of an "organized mess" dynamic, which I liked.

     The longer I stared at the piece, the more it started to change. My eyes began to see different shapes and colors. The tops of the poles all appear to be different shades of white because of the lighting and how the camera captures each pole at a different angle. The pole on the far right closest to the camera looks like a light pink or rose color. The pole on the left looks like a blue-gray color. It was as if the sculpture wanted me to walk closer to it because of the lines the shadows made on the ground, which pointed right back to it. 

     The artist, Kyle Bauer, said that he was inspired to make this because it reminded him of his childhood picking off the tops of the corn in a cornfield. So, this sculpture is his representation of a cornfield. Initially, I thought it was a representation of a field of flowers, the ends of darts, or fireworks waiting to be lit up. This art piece had more meaning to me before Bauer explained what it was about. After his explanation, I felt completely disconnected from the sculpture.