• Signage Works is showing at Eastfield College Gallery.
• More MAP events schedule
• In the days ahead, we’re featuring a different sign on the Art&Seek home page from the Signage Works project.  Scroll down for info on each sign’s creator.

The first sign that artist Rebecca Carter made was inspired by a real estate slogan she saw posted in an empty lot. “Build Your Dreams,” it said. She was taken by the phrase. There were many ways to read it already, and her own bouts with insomnia added additional layers of meaning.  So she made her own version of the sign and planted it in her front yard.

She’s since repeatedly returned to signs in her work.

“They’re ubiquitous,” she says. “We’re always constantly taking in this information.”

And what does it mean to make a sign, put it out to be seen?

Carter is also an adjunct faculty member at Eastfield College. And she’d recently agreed to teach high schoolers at The Modern in Fort Worth. So it seemed natural that when she and Janeil Engelstad, founder of Make Art with Purpose (MAP) got together to discuss how she might participate in the project, working with students “to insert their voice into these systems of communication” came up.

The process was similar — “a real process of ideation” — for both groups of students. First, Carter shared her sign-related work. They watched a huge slideshow of other artists using signs. And she showed a collection of signs all over the world. They shot pictures of signs in their neighborhoods and in unfamiliar places. Finally, they did writing exercises to reflect on their own concerns, before creating their own slogans.

“For me, one of the really important parts of the piece is flipping that switch from being a consumer of media to being a creator,” Carter says.

You can see the students’ work at Eastfield College Gallery. There is a hope that the work will one day be shown in a larger space, perhaps at Dallas’ Union Station.

And below, meet the contributing artists:

Posted Monday Nov. 4

Artist: Brenda Hernandez

School: Eastfield College

Title: The Evolution of Mistakes

Rebecca Carter notes: Brenda Hernandez is a nursing student at Eastife4ld. For Hernandez, it is vitally important to not get bogged down by perceived mistakes, regardless of how bad they might seem. Rather, take each experience as an opportunity for growth.

Posted Tuesday Oct. 29

Artist: Kate Barbee

School: Teen Artist Program/Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Title: Take Pride in Constant Nourishment of your Grandma’s Pie and Your Cousin’s Music

Proposed format/location: Billboard in a big-city setting where technology is a big priority, or an abandoned country billboard

Rebecca Carter notes: In discussing the project, Barbee expressed a bit of nostalgia or longing for a large extended family that she didn’t actually hve. Her work in a sense became a fulfillment of that longing, with it’s hand-painted quality and the specific references to family experience.

Posted Monday Oct. 28

Artist: Ana Garcia

School: Eastfield College

About me: My dream is to be an art director for a high fashion magazine.

About my sign: My sign is my way of trying to save people. I want people to take care of their bodies by showing them there is another side. People change the world; we need them at the top of their game to keep the world moving forward.

 

Posted Wed. Oct. 22:

Artist: Joelle Goossen

School: Eastfield College

Title: Doing Something About Dreaming

Proposed location: On the highway that is heading away from a Disney park or any amusement park or outside any art college.

Rebecca Carter notes: Goossen expressed her passion for the importance of acting on one’s dreams, not just sitting around fantasizing about some potential future. For her, dreaming without action behind it has the potential to be a cage. But the door isn’t locked.

Posted Tues. Oct. 22

Artist: Brandon Battee

School: Eastfield College, but will attend UTA in the Spring.

Title: Voice

About my sign: I wanted to draw my work by hand because it felt easier that way. Coming up with the right font was troublesome, but overall, I’m happy.

Rebecca Carter notes: Brandon Battee is a soft-spoken person who speaks loud and clear through his work.  In the process of making this sign, Battee told the story of his mother telling him he had better learn to speak up for himself.

Posted Mon., Oct. 21

Artist: Cheryl Acuna

School: Teen Artist Program/Modern Art Museum Fort Worth (Currently attending School of the Art Institute of Chicago)

About me: 19-year-old pile of carbon currently residing in Chicago.

About my sign: We’re Stuck Here Just a harsh little reminder that everybody’s pretty much the same.

Rebecca Carter notes: When talking about her sign, Acuna articulated the existential perspective that her sign expresses in a very matter of fact way. We are literally all stuck here together regardless of what we might think, feel or desire in any particular moment.

Posted Thurs. Oct. 17, Updated Oct. 22

Artist: Guadalupe Rubio

School: Eastfield College

About me: Gaudalupe Rubio isa native of San Luis Potosi, Mexico. She and her family moved to Texas when she was 15 years old. Two years later, after struggling with the different types of cultures and languages, she decided to enroll in a cosmetology school. Her passion about art helped Guadalupe start her career at a community college in 2012. She hopes to become an art teacher. She is currently a cake decorator and a cosmetology operator. Guadalupe believes there is no right or wrong answers when doing art; art is all about oneself and expressing what is inside us.

About my sign: Rubio’s sign is a representation of what starts at home is reflected everywhere.  When things are not running  right at home, they are not right anywhere.

Proposed location: Poster. Colleges. Because students have the tendency to do whatever it is they want. Sometimes their actions lead to success, sometimes to failure.

Posted Wed. Oct. 16

Artist: Marco A. Aguirre

School: Teen Artist Program/Modern Art Museum Fort Worth

Title: Broken in Translation

Proposed location: As a billboard on the side of any freeway or obscure main road. At a location where there is a root of ‘Spanish speaking’ tension/demographic. I’d like to have it focused near areas of provocative social issues concerning immigration (i.e. near border states).

Rebecca Carter notes: Aquirre was a prolific sign producer who was very taken with the idea of making signs with translations which meant slightly, or very, different things in Spanish than they did in English.

Posted Tuesday Oct. 15

Artist: Will Burnett

School: Teen Artist Program/Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

Title: Resonential Living (texture/space/air/time)

Proposed location: Banner-esque. Some sort of blank wall or residential area.

Rebecca Carter notes: With dry wit and sharp intelligence, Burnett based this sign on one of the most very basic templates available in the Windows software program. His intention was to mimic this qbiquitous cookie cutter readily available visual reference with the suggestion of rich and nuanced potential.

Posted Monday Oct. 14

Artist: Andrea Gonzalez

School: Eastfield College

About me: I was born & raised in Los Angeles. I am working toward becoming an art teacher in the hopes of bringing light into people’s lives through the wonderful medium of art.

About your sign, “Enlighten”: When I made this piece was centered around the idea that there are good & rich things in life, even if at times that might not seem like the case. I think this piece is just a way for people to reflect on their own lives. What makes it even more special is that everybody’s perception will remain unique to itself; giving this piece a unique interpretation that changes from person to person.