Description: …show more content…
Enjoy it… While it Lasts, created in 2007 by Tim Berg and Rebekah Myers, is a three dimensional contemporary work, meant to be mounted on a wall.
It consists of four orange popsicles, evenly spaced in a row. The first of the popsicles is a complete popsicle, while the second popsicle has what looks to be a bite taken out of the top. The third popsicle has been bitten in two places and is more than half gone, and the fourth popsicle is not really a popsicle at all, but just the popsicle stick. The tops of the popsicles are bright orange and glossy, in stark contrast to the plain wooden texture of the popsicle sticks. The bottom and top of the popsicle sticks are rounded like real popsicle sticks. The top of the first popsicle is also rounded. Where there are bites, you see that the popsicle is filled with white. The sticks were made from maple, while the popsicle is made from steel and MDF, and painted with urethane paint. It’s a fairly large piece, 108 x 54 x 8
inches. Analysis: One of the first things the viewer notices when they see this piece is the bright, colorful orange of the popsicle. This color suggests energy and playfulness. The style of the work also suggests playfulness — the oversized popsicles are whimsical and cartoon-like. The subject of the popsicle reminds the viewer of childhood. The large scale of the popsicles could be for emphasis, but could also relate to the message.They are also three-dimensional, but the fact that they are mounted to the wall gives them a more flat, graphic appearance, which fits well with Myer’s background in graphic design. The arrangement of the four popsicles in a left-to-right row suggests that they are directly related. Each popsicle has more and more bites until there’s just a stick left, which creates a rhythm and flow to the composition as the viewer reads it from left to right. These compositional choices allow the viewer to see the row of popsicles as the story of one popsicle, rather than as a grouping of multiple popsicles. The title gives the viewer a hint about this, and the meaning as well: Enjoy it… While it Lasts. The artists’ choice of materials is also important. They chose industrial materials for the popsicle — steel, MDF, and urethane paint, while the stick is made from maple, a natural material. The glossy urethane paint brings to mind plastic toys, which also bring associations with childhood. When this plastic is paired with the maple popsicle stick, this makes it appear more grounded. The stick is made out of what most popsicle sticks are made of: wood. This honesty of materials makes the stick the most realistic part of the piece, which may have implications about it’s meaning. Before one can interpret this work, one also has to analyze the meaning of the subject. It’s all too easy to say that the subject of this work is the popsicle, but arguably, the popsicle has no meaning until the human being has experienced it in some way. The true subject of this piece is in fact the experience or act of eating the popsicle. If one is to assume that the popsicle in this piece is being bitten by a human being (in a figurative sense), then that human experience has to be part of the story. People eat popsicles because they are sweet and colorful and because they are cold. They eat popsicles outdoors when it is hot outside, usually in the summer. Sometimes they also eat popsicles after a meal for a special treat. The experience of eating a popsicle is a common one, especially in childhood, but sometimes also in adulthood; almost everyone has unwrapped a popsicle and enjoyed it slowly until it was gone. Much to the person’s disappointment, the popsicle is consumed — but it’s meant to be consumed.