What to do about the inkblot’s bad reputation
The inkblot is infamous! It suffers a bad reputation in the nondynamic Psychology world where it is considered more art than science. Ironically, in the art world there are those who see it as more Psychology than art. One shared perception has to do with the idea that visually it signifies a test. In Psychology it is attacked for being a poorly constructed test. In art, the viewer’s inability to get past the concept of test or, that I am somehow using the blots to read minds, discourages visual interest such that the poetry and lyricism of the inkblot images are not even processed. So, the question is what to do about this test signifying situation? Do I appropriate Andy Warhol’s strategy and exhibit it like a test of some kind, thereby neutralizing the criticism that it is a test? I have tried to vary the formal aspects of the blots (see phase II images) so as to disassociate them from the test situation but the problem with that is that it sacrifices the associational value of bisymmetry. I have also tried to expand into figurative work but that promises to continue the problems discovered by my phase 2 work which is to say that people, upon focusing on the figurative imagery lose sight of the inkblot imagery.
Tie Dye and Inkblots: Similarities and dissimilarities between tie dye and inkblots
Tie dye is an artistic process applied to fabric. The fabric is tied and then dye is applied. The dye does not take to the areas of fabric that are tied. It was very popular during the hippie era. Tie dying often has specific “nonambiguous” patterns unlike a Rorschach (which of course is a process applied to paper and designed to produce accidental images). Sophisticated tie dying is not accidental at all and involves complex knowledge of pattern making. However, like the inkblot, it is an everyperson can do it kind of art. They are both humble art forms, which I think has merit.
Here are some links to tie dye definitions and images on the internet.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tie-dye
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tie-dye
The image in wikipedia is particularly interesting in its sophistication re pattern making. The patterns are symmetrical like a Rorschach but not ambiguous. I expect though that you can get ambiguous patterns with tie dye and if I ever become interested in applying Rorschach imagery to fabric I may engage the methodology of tie dye.
Historically speaking, one might say…tie dye was part of the encouragement of the hallucinatory experience. Inkblots were used to identify such experiences in the hopes that people who really suffered from them could find antidotes to them.
Finally, tie dye “signifies” something very different from an “inkblot” culturally. Tie dye signifies the hippie error and a time of psychedelic colors and getting high to the point where one’s brain probably looked tie dyed. Inkblots, unfortunately, have changed in their initial signifying function of playful subjective objects to an intimidating test, which some people automatically resist.
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