It wasn’t until I developed my third board of the tryptic that my full piece’s meaning unfolded. I went back to the chapters of Invisible Cities and found a city that aligned with my work. Marco Polo calls the city Aglaura, explaining that “there is little I can tell you about Aglaura beyond the things its own inhabitants have always repeated” (Calvino 67). He exposes the idea that what gives meaning and life to a city is the things people say about it. When I looked back at my tryptic, I realized that the places, streets, rivers, etc., were all existing because of the names people assigned them. Along with this, my first board also captures my personal view of where I live in New Jersey. I was inspired by the area’s areal views and map view and wanted to capture this throughout the piece.
The second board drew inspiration from the journey I took to find my natural dyes and pigments. Through this process, I noticed very few of the plants that I found were originally from New Jersey or North America. I was inspired to show the journey of plants from their various origins to my state. While creating this piece, I began to wonder what New Jersey, and more specifically, my town, would look like if it weren’t for people. This journey introduced the question in which my final board explores.
My third tryptic inspiration came from the question: what would New Jersey look like if people had not come here in the first place? Polo continues, describing Aglaura as a “colorless city, without character, planted there at random” (67). From this statement, I gathered my concept for my final part of the tryptic board. I wanted it to reflect the first part of the board, but colorless and without character, as Polo described. I suppose that my first board represents the names and opinions that give my hometown its meaning, and the final, saying that a city without its people is practically nonexistent. I captured this by repeating similar streets and shapes from the first board and appearing washed out. By taking away the roads and lakes’ names, I have stripped the meaning from the painting. My board also questions why humans believe that a city is meaningless without our involvement in it. Why is it that nature can only become and exist as nature when we label it?