User:Aacarrie/WSPA Reflections

November 9th Assignment
I was most surprised at how much public art is on the Indianapolis University-Purdue University campus. I think I have perhaps seen three of the twenty-four sculptures. I had never noticed Mother's Helper (Chalfant), and was especially surprised about Procession of Ants (Bowen) by Taylor Hall. Perhaps I am not around Taylor Hall enough.

Both of these articles are somewhat intimidating when I consider my two pieces of Public art for my Wikipedia Saves Public Art Project. Both of these artists are connected with Herron School of Art on the IUPUI campus. It seems as though their information would be more readily available than either of my sculptures at the Indiana Statehouse especially Ceres on the fourth floor, yet the article for Procession of Ants was not that long or detailed. I shudder to think about how little I may find on either of my sculptures. However, I think this is a great opportunity and am enjoying the experience more and more.

I am looking forward to the challenge the Statehouse will provide. Aacarrie (talk) 14:45, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

November 16th Assignmemt
I grew up in Winona, Minnesota a city with three colleges/universities and a (now) thriving art society. However, it took me quite a while to find anything on our many sculptures and other public artworks in the city. I chose to look at a fountain, that was built in 1900, called Wenonah Fountain depicting Princess Winona, the first born daughter of a Sioux Chief and the subject of a legend which gives our city its name. However, their was no information on that or any other sculpture in Winona. So, instead, I added to the Princess Winona Wiki page. I added a citation, a section on public Art and an Information box with a picture of the bronze statue and fountain.

When comparing Princess Winona to Cloud Gate there is so much to say about how far the article I altered still needs to go before it is even close to a good article that it is hard to know where to begin. The headings are laid out pretty well considering the small size of the article itself. I know there is a lot more information about Princess Winona's history and story available. Winona, MN is almost fanatic when it comes to the legend of Princess Winona. The article only had one citation and a second "citation needed" which I found and added to the article. I also added a citation, which was used twice. There was also a few external links and bibliography sources that were reliable, however without my prior knowledge about Princess Winona and her story I would rate this website a 3 because even though there was very little information written, the article had enough sources and external links to make it useful and slightly more believable. Aacarrie (talk) 22:31, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

November 30th Assignment
Oddly enough I found this assignment to be the most frustrating. Even when I followed the directions on the assignments page I ended up accidentally creating false pages and I found myself forgetting how to upload photos to Wikipedia, which in all honestly is probably attributed to my exhaustion right now. The Thanksgiving break is also most likely attributing to my stupidity. I added a "fail box" to my user page, because I thought it would be fun to show how the different stages and attempts all built up to my final live articles. I also wasn't sure if other users would be able to help me fix some of my mistakes. One major question that I still have is: How do you turn a sandbox draft into a live article? I managed to create a live article, but am not sure if I did it the best way. I ended up having to copy and paste my sandbox into a newly searched Live article under the name I wanted. I feel like my method just ends up creating a lot more unnecessary links. I understand that a large part of this assignment is figuring Wikipedia out, but I also don't want to bog Wiki down with so many extra mistakes. I am excited and kind of nervous to see what happens to my articles now that they are live. I still have a lot of work to do on both of them, including adding a citation to the George Rogers Clark bust once I find out how to cite the ISM archive. However, I am really excited about the Indiana Statue by Miss Retta Matthews. I never thought I would find out so much information about the statue and Miss Matthews and so little about the George Rogers Clark bust by David McLary. Aacarrie (talk) 03:31, 30 November 2010 (UTC)