This is my Andy Warhol inspired design using my personal salt lamp I keep on my desk. I chose this item to represent myself as a sort of abstract representation of my spirituality and personality. Initially, I was going to select my wooden training sword from my time as a martial artist which has Japanese symbols that are very important to me burned into the handle. However, this idea was scrapped due to it not making a good composition for this style of design. Andy Warhol’s big idea was to use common objects such as Coca-cola cans in his artwork as a way to reach everyone as his audience. Regardless or wealth or social status, everyone could relate to things like Coca-cola or Campbell soup. I think his ideas about popular culture do have merit as these types of objects do have a very interesting relationship amongst people. His way of using this medium of common items is very simple, but a very effective way to get all ranges of audiences to stop and pay attention to his artwork and receive the message he has placed within the image.
My object does not necessarily connect to popular culture. The connotation of a salt lamp appeals more to a specific subset of people who are more spiritual than religious. However, what is very interesting about this type of object, especially with the bold color scheme I have chosen inspired by Andy Warhol, is that the vast majority of humans find some intrinsic fascination with the appearance of crystals. The warm glow that flows through the salt lamp is very comforting and captivating to watch regardless of your wealth or social status. Warhol used a significant amount of automation in his artwork which has been further improved upon by taking art-making into Photoshop. However, I think part of Warhol’s tradition may have been lost during this transition. One of the interesting characteristics of his artwork was how each object had a small amount of personality to them despite also looking the same. Now, with Photoshop, there seems to be a deeper desire for perfection, flawlessness, and for objects to look precisely the same. While this is very useful for some designs, it feels like some of the magic of Warhol’s art has been lost in this regard.