You Can See/Can You See?

Finals Progress & Process

I recently learned that one of my friends is also colorblind; we spent a good hour messing around on all these different websites taking all the colorblind tests and reading up on the topic. I've known about my colorblindness for a few years, but it still fascinates me because it isn't 100% or anything; I can tell the difference between green and red just fine. The same goes for any other color, really. Sometimes I'll have trouble telling greens and yellows apart, or blues and purples, but it's usually because they've got some of the other color in them and aren't totally obviously separate.

It's always been this big ha ha with people that I want to be an artist and I'm colorblind, and it got me thinking that maybe that would be a great topic for a piece. I decided I wanted to make reliefs of circular colorblind tests a) because I wanted to do something more sculptural b) because I wanted to work, even on a small scale, with wood. 

My original idea was to make 12 circles, 10" in diameter, and then cut different sized dowel rods into the circles that would compose my colorblind tests.

The tests themselves would be arranged in four rows of three. The first three would be composed of mostly gray circles, with colored circles spelling out "you can see." The second row would have the same words, but would be all colored with greens and reds, like a typical colorblind test. The third row would again be gray with colored circles but this time asking more of a question, "can you see?" The fourth row would be the same question, but in colorblind colors.

Collectively I've probably spent about 12 hours cutting dowel robs for this project. I figured out pretty quickly that I wouldn't have enough time to complete the project as I originally intended, so I sat down and reworked the idea, and it actually turned out to be for the best. I decided that my original idea was more repetitive than I realized, so I trimmed it down from 12 colorblind circles to 6. The first row will be gray and color stating "you can see." The second row will be colorblind colors and will be more of a question, "can you see." That way the joke is still there, because everyone is going be to able to see the first row because it's gray and colored, so both colorblind and non-colorblind people will be able to view it. And even while the colorblind circles are asking if the viewer can see the words or not, only a non-colorblind person is going to be able to see and answer that question. 

First I gessoed all the dowel rods and overall circles so that they would better take the paint.

Next I arranged the cut dowel rod circles so that I was sure the word would appear in the larger overall circle. Then I filled in the space around it with other circles.

I painted the words for the colorblind circles by hand because there were so few of them, and each of the circles needed to be different from the one next to it. For all the red circles surrounding these words, I was able to divide them up into groups based on size. I then placed each size grouping into a bag with paint and shook them around so each was covered. Once dry, I further divided each size category into three groups, one for each circle.


I then arranged all the green circles upside down, so the words were spelled backwards, and then arranged all the red circles around them, careful to get good variety. After that, I coated one of the 10" circles with wood glue, placed it on the backs of the smaller circles, and compressed while they dried.

Arranging the red around the green, upside down. Then I'll smoother another circle with wood glue, press it on top, hold, and flip.

ALMOST DONE.