The Other View is a mixed media piece that I started in the earlier half of 2008, but I didn't complete until 2009, mostly because I was overwhelmed with other projects in 2008. The ideas for The Other View were inspired by two projects I started back in 2007. Back then, I wanted to work with a variety of mediums and create fully 3-D paintings that I would later refer to as 'Sculptural Paintings'. By 2008, I wanted to simplify the concept, so I started a few new pieces that would be looked at like regular paintings, but would also have 3-D sculptural elements. For much of it's development, I would often refer to this piece as the 'window concept' since the window frame design was the first thing I decided on when I drew the original concepts in my sketchbook.

Burlap mixed with casting plaster was my primary material at the time for creating the 3-D elements in my artwork. After the creation of the frame, I decided that a simple grass and sky background would be used, and since I was going through a "green craze" at the time, the primary color used in the background was green. The sky was created using acrylics. Mixtures of black and white would be used as an undertone, and then painted over using various mixtures of violet and green. The spirals were added after the sky was completed as a way of adding a little more to the fairly simple background without adding too much. They were created by simply using black paint and small brushes. The grassy area was originally as flat as the sky, but was later changed after a friend of mine told me about ceramic stucco. I saw it as a way of adding more 3-D elements and just like the spirals I wanted to add more significance to a fairly ordinary background without doing too much. After the stucco dried, various mixtures of green, yellow, and blue acrylic paint ware used to add color. Charcoal sticks were used to give the piece a dirtier look. Fixative had to be used in order to keep the charcoal from smearing. Towards the end of the project, glossy black spray paint was used on the frame to make the texture within the frame more noticeable. The final touch to this piece was added using polymer gloss. Layers of it were used to give the impression that the viewer could see what looked like old, textured glass. It's noticeable especially when sunlight is shining on it.

The Other View was a very important project for me. When I first started working on it, I did something I never did with any prior project. I used 3-D elements directly on the painting instead of just the edges. I used new mediums for the first time such as ceramic stucco and polymer gloss. I used more mediums than I did in any previous project and I feel they all work very well together. The name The Other View really didn't have any meaning when I chose it. At the time, I saw it as a way of telling people they're supposed to be looking through an imaginary window. Now that I look at it a little while after it's completion and thought about what I set out to do, the name has more of a meaning to me. I see it as a piece that gives people an alternative perspective about art. During the development of The Other View, I felt that many people around me including many artists were looking at art in restrictive ways. They would see an art piece as simply a drawing, a painting, or a sculpture piece, and would strictly look at every type of art as a genre such as realism or abstract. Many people felt that an art piece had to be either one thing or the other. To me, none of that mattered anymore. I wanted to defy the established view of art that was shared by many people by strictly thinking about the material I would use and how it would work together rather than thinking about what kind of art this is supposed to be. I felt that I would have a greater sense of creativity if I created art this way. Of course, I'm not the first person in the world to make this kind of art, but around where I am, I really don't see art like this. This piece received a lot of praise when I had it at an art show earlier this year and I'm glad the people who saw it accepted it. While this piece could be a little better (the spirals while they add a lot are a little bland compared to everything else), I think it's a great piece and I really enjoyed working on it. This piece also gave me a lot of new ideas to work with.