About Suggestion Box

How many visual cues do we need to complete a picture in our minds? How does text interact with visual information to produce an image or a story in our brains?

This is an investigation into the limits of visual reduction and the power of suggestion. I'm also interested in the degree to which a work of art meets the viewer and in how hard the viewer is willing to work to have an experience.

Serious inquiry? Droll experiment? Maybe a little of both.

The images and titles on this page are often grouped in twos, threes and fours; together, each group forms a progression around a single idea, sometimes a color I request from folks on Twitter and Facebook.

Want to play? Simply look, read, and let your mind fill in the details - then scroll to the next in the series.

To join in, tell me a color name. Just one. Like pink. Or emerald green. I'll do the rest.

Read more about Suggestion Box

Request a color

Wednesday
Aug242011

Memory of Fat Elvis

Memory of Fat Elvis, a 1979 Dodge Ram van. In Dinosaur National Park we drive down a rocky road into a canyon, red and yellow rocks rising above us, striped with black. At the bottom a stream parallels the face of a rock behind which air moves through a black gap opening deep into the cliff. High above head height on the rock wall, petroglyphs.

Wednesday
Aug242011

Photograph of Fat Elvis (Part 2 of 3)

Photograph of Fat Elvis, manufactured the year the King died. A 1979 Dodge Ram van my then-boyfriend bought used from a nice Vietnamese family. Pictured here in Dinosaur National Park, Utah circa 1995 on the way home from a Seattle-Chicago road trip, covered in dirt that matches the van. 5 x 6" color Kodak print.

Wednesday
Aug242011

Fat Elvis (Part 1 of 3)

Fat Elvis, a 1979 Dodge Ram van, V6, 4-speed automatic with custom pumpkin orange-and-lime green shag interior and matching pumpkin orange velour seats.

Saturday
Aug062011

The Treachery of Images ("Ceçi n'est pas une pipe"), René Magritte (Part 3 of 3)

The Treachery of Images ("Ceçi n'est pas une pipe"), René Magritte, 1928-29, Oil on canvas, 63.5 cm × 93.98 cm (25 in × 37 in), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA

Saturday
Aug062011

This is a pipe (Part 2 of 3)

Chestnut Bent Dublin pipe by Dunhill

Saturday
Aug062011

This is not a pipe (Part 1 of 3)

Sunday
Jul172011

Watermelon red (Part 3 of 3)

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan, 1968

The tale of a commune organized around a central gathering house named "iDEATH". In this environment, many things are made of watermelon sugar (though the inhabitants also use pine wood and stone for building material and fuel is made from trout oil). The landscape of the novel is always changing. Each day has a different colored sun which creates different colored watermelons, and the central building also changes frequently. - Wikipedia

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The color "watermelon red" was commissioned by Anthony Lawler on Facebook and Twitter

Sunday
Jul172011

Watermelon red (Part 2 of 3)

Watermelon smoothie in a tall faceted glass.

Ingredients:

2 cups seeded watermelon chunks
1 cup cracked ice
1/2 cup plain low fat yogurt
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon almond extract

Sunday
Jul172011

Watermelon red (Part 1 of 3)

Watermelon: Results of Google image search

Monday
Jul112011

Complacency (Part 1 of 1)

Complacency: 1. self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies 2. an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction - Merriam Webster

1 Gallon Acrylic Latex | Eggshell Finish | Do Not Stir

Saturday
Jul092011

Two laps underwater (Part 2 of 2)


Eyes open to the smarting blur you kick and wriggle against your blood and brain, gain the deep end wall tuck and shove, the world in your ears and your lungs in your face you kick and kick till your fingers luck on the shallow end wall and you burst up grinning and gasping
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The color Turquoise (2 parts) was commissioned by Lesley Hamilton Frenz on Facebook

Saturday
Jul092011

A Bigger Splash (Part 1 of 2)

A Bigger Splash, David Hockney, 1967. Acrylic on canvas, 242.5 x 243.9 cm (95 1/2 x 96 in)

Tuesday
Jul052011

Memory of a woman in a red Alexander McQueen dress at 2:00am (Part 3 of 3)

In the picture the woman wears a two-piece, scarlet wool dress by Alexander McQueen. It's sculptural, with a rounded collar dipping to a slotted neckline, fitted at the waist and skimming the knee. The woman looks dark and determined. The lampshade glows red on my desk. I glance at the upper right of my screen. 2:00 am.

Tuesday
Jul052011

The Woman in Red, Thrilling Comics #2 (Part 2 of 3)

The Woman in Red. Perhaps the first female costumed comic book superhero, the character was created by writer Richard E. Hughes and artist George Mandel for Thrilling Comics #2 (March 1940), published by Nedor Comics. The Woman in Red is the secret identity of policewoman Peggy Allen. Frustrated by the limitations of her job, Peggy creates a secret identity. She wears a red, floor-length coat, hood, and mask. [Source: Wikipedia]

Tuesday
Jul052011

Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions by Kasimir Malevich (Part 1 of 3)

Red Square: Painterly Realism of a Peasant Woman in Two Dimensions, Kasimir Malevich, 1915. Oil on canvas, 20 7/8 x 20 7/8 in (53 x 53). State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Sunday
Jul032011

Guggenheim Bilbao

Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Bilbao. Built by Ferrovial in Bilbao, Spain, 1997. Steel frame sheathed in titanium, with glass and limestone. Designed in the Expressionist Modern style, the Bilbao reads as a free sculpture of curvaceous metal-clad forms.

Sunday
Jul032011

Silver tureen, French, 18th c.

Silver tureen, 1757–59. Marked by Edme-Pierre Balzac (French, 1705–ca. 1786). French; Paris. H. 10 1/4 in. (26 cm), W. 9 1/8 in. (23.2 cm), L. 15 3/8 in. (39.1 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Balzac's tureens are notable for their highly sculptural finials; in this case, a stag is being pulled down by three hounds—perhaps an allusion to the type of stew the tureen might contain.

Sunday
Jul032011

Gold amulet in the form of a vulture

Gold amulet in the form of a vulture. Egyptian, Third Intermediate Period-Late Dynastic Period, c. 1000-300 BC. Width: 3.2 cm

Thursday
Jun302011

Consecutive Retinal Contrast: Manet's Olympia Part 4 of 4

Consecutive retinal contrast: Edouard Manet, Olympia (detail, bed). 1863. Oil on canvas 130 × 190 cm (51.2 × 74.8 in), Musée d'Orsay | Digital painting in four parts, Julia Hensley 2011

Thursday
Jun302011

Consecutive Retinal Contrast: Manet's Olympia Part 3 of 4

Consecutive retinal contrast: Edouard Manet, Olympia (detail 3, cat). 1863. Oil on canvas 130 × 190 cm (51.2 × 74.8 in), Musée d'Orsay | Digital painting in four parts, Julia Hensley 2011