User:Deannarcundiff/WSPA Reflections

Reflections and Thoughts on WSPA Project
November 9th, 2010

Wikipedia Saves Public Art is a remarkable project that helps provide information many people may not otherwise be able to access. People pass these sculptures and works of art every day and probably wonder about them. Before WSPA, these people would either have to conduct their own laborious research on these pieces or continue to wonder about them, because access to information was difficult to attain.

After looking through the different articles for the Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis Public Art Collection, it is incredible to have all kinds of information about the pieces in one place. The articles do not only talk about the piece itself. Some of the articles also provide information on the artist, the types of material used and how it can be affected by being outside.

After reading through many articles, the two I found most interesting were Broken Walrus I and Procession of Ants. The Broken Walrus I article discusses the deterioration of the piece and how it eventually met its demise. Procession of Ants was intriguing because I learned the artist, David Bowen, had a connection to Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis' Herron School of Art.

I hope when I create my two articles on the Indiana Statehouse pieces, I will be able to provide those interested with as much information on the pieces themselves, along with the artist and material information.

November 16th, 2010

I am among the most computer illiterate people out there, and even though there were a few times I wanted to pull my hair out on this week’s assignment, I powered through and learned a lot. After scouring through numerous websites trying to find an outdoor art work in Louisville, KY, I decided to stick with a piece I fell in love with as a child. Although The Thinker sculpture, which sits on the front lawn of Grawemeyer Hall on the University of Louisville Belknap Campus, is not the original sculpture, it still has great significance.

Since this particular sculpture does not have its own wiki page, I thought I would analyze the page of the original The Thinker sculpture. While looking over this article, I noticed a lot of information without references. I was confused why this page had not been marked as without proper cited. Given the time crunch I was in, I was not able to find any reliable sources to either support or refute what was written, so I left it alone.

As far as revisions or additions to the page, I added an info box containing a picture of The Thinker statue from the University of Louisville. I think this statue has great significance because the list of other Thinker sculptures claims it to be the first sculpture created from the cast using the lost-wax casting method. Besides providing an info box on this particular sculpture, I also added information on the provenance of the sculpture, which I got from the University of Louisville website.

Throughout this new addition of information, I created hyperlinks and provided a reference for my information under the References header. I deemed this information very reliable since it came from the university website. Lastly, I added an external link to the Musee Rodin, where the original sculpture can be found. This website may provide information on upcoming events involving The Thinker statue.

After viewing other articles, such as the Auguste Rodin, Mega-Gem and Cloud Gate articles, it was clear this article was not high quality due to the lack of references it possessed. The headers were clear, but I did move information under the “Historical information” to the “Additional casts” header because it pertained to an additional cast.

I found conflicting information in the article, but didn’t change it because I could not find a reliable source to back up either side. The paragraph I moved discusses the first cast being housed in the Musee Rodin, but if you click on the List of Thinker Sculptures and scroll down to Louisville, KY, it states it is “The first cast made from the original sculpture.” On a scale from 1 to 10, I would give this article a 3. It provides a lot of useful information and is laid out clearly, but the lack of references to back the information leads me to question whether the information was simply made up. Also, the conflicting information within the article adds to the unreliability.

November 29, 2010

This week has been a whirlwind. Not only was it Thanksgiving week, but it’s also crunch time for classes for this semester. There are so many projects, and so little time to complete them. For this class, it seems every time I curse Wikipedia, it eventually grows on me by the time I’ve completed the assignment for the week. For these past two weeks, I have been running around town taking photographs and gathering information on my two pieces of art: Young Abe Lincoln and Plaque of Frances Elizabeth Willard.

I really enjoyed this experience and learned a great deal about researching, Flickr, and Wikipedia. My two art works allowed me to experience two different types of Wikipedia articles. Young Abe Lincoln proved to be a well-documented piece with a lot of information available. I gathered information from the Indiana Statehouse, the IUPUI library, the IMA library and the Smithsonian Art Archives website. Not only does the piece itself have a lot of information, but the artist, David K. Rubins, does as well. Unfortunately, there isn’t a Wikipedia article that talks about Rubins. I tried to provide as much information on his life and artwork without taking too much away from the actual piece itself.

It’s been interesting to read all the articles and information on this piece. I found a lot of the information has been repeated in several of the newspaper and magazine articles. I also found some information is different from article to article. When there was any contradiction, I picked either the more reliable source or the most current. Early on, a lot of controversy surrounded the Young Abe Lincoln statue. The creation of the statue was postponed due to arguments on funding and arguments on how the artist was chosen.

The Plaque of Frances Elizabeth Willard has not been so forthcoming with information. There is no record of the plaque. The only pieces of information I could find were a couple of blurbs at the IUPUI library and the Indiana Statehouse. However, each of these didn’t talk about the plaque, but rather Frances Elizabeth Willard herself or the artist Lorado Taft. I was only able to provide basic information on the Wiki page and unfortunately I think this classifies it as a stub. On the bright side, if people would like more information on Frances Elizabeth Willard or Lorado Taft, there are extensive Wiki articles on both. Since the plaque commemorates Frances Elizabeth Willard for her services, I think it’s great that she has a Wiki page detailing those services.

Besides gathering information on my two pieces, I added information on the talk page about putting quotes within Wiki articles. I came across a great quote from David K. Rubin describing his sculpture, ‘’Young Abe Lincoln’’, that was too good to rephrase. I also had an issue with putting geo coordinates on my Flickr pictures. However, after some exploring, I figured it out.

It’s been a lot of work finding the information and creating Wiki articles, but it has also been a fun and rewarding learning experience seeing everything come together. I look forward to final products.