Create, dismantle, and recreate

It's deconstruction time. We will take something apart rather than put something together.

Choose a painting, photograph, story, book, poem, or song to examine. It can be any creation in a form of your choice. This will work with your favourite movie or television show too!

Use these actions as a guide to deconstruct, then reconstruct something new.

Analyze. Name the values the creator reveals. Values are beliefs. For example, when I listen to Beatles music I notice they value play, high energy, witty imagery, places, and things. If I listen to Barbara Streisand I notice she values intensity, connection, inner work, and people.

What do you learn about the creator through the elements, the characters, the setting, the colours or lines, the creative choices she makes? Begin by seeking the truth in this work. What is it trying to say?

Understand. How is the form servicing the message? What if this were a memoir or a photograph or a song? How would the audience's understanding change? Why does form matter?

Critique. Which ideas are repeated? What makes this piece compelling? How do features in the work connect or disconnect with you as a person? As a creator? Which truths are implicit? Explicit?

Connect. Through journaling, try to gain a deeper understanding of how this creation connects to your creations. Make a list of three things you notice and then use what you’ve learned from this piece to experiment in your own work.

“Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”

Thomas Merton

Choose a story or work of art to deconstruct. What do you learn from it?