Interpreting Big Ideas

"I think that painting or the kind of I prefer to explore, is about unknowns or looking for questions more than answers" - artist Brice Marden

     I am not always support the use of quotes but this one in particular intrigues me and suggests that the best art investigated new possibilities and not just the established path/way of doing things. This reminds me of my favorite poem (even if it is considered to be somewhat of a cliche).

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 

     The second paragraph of the "Big Ideas and Artmaking" article, which discusses how a "big idea" provides art making with significance, grabbed my attention because that is how I operate as an architecture student.  Architectural design can generate fascinating physical forms but if it lacks meaning then it is superfluous.  It is this endeavor to produce a meaning that, as the the author states, pushes the artist's product beyond a simple craft exercise of technical skills and manipulation.  This is a situation I have faced for the entirety of my collegiate career.  I believe this need for significance extends to all creative fields: sculpting, painting, architecture, drawing, fashion, furniture design, graffiti, collage, etc.  The author also provides some well known artists who fit this "big idea" approach to design to strengthen his argument.
     The only parts that seemed silly were the little tips teachers on how to interact with students regarding the subject matter of the article.  While reading the article, I felt as though I were a student and the tips were written to address an instructor.
     I found the article by Terry Barrett, "Interpreting Visual Culture", interesting in that it attempted to explain the the subconscious way we interpret the our visual surroundings.  As an architecture major, I am somewhat used to interpreting what I see in the physical world.  I have taken an Intro to Architectural Theory, which while partially exploring the historical development of the field, also investigates formal reasons for the way things are designed and the ways they affect our subconscious perception of the world.  In the course, I studied buildings, painting composition, glassware, etc.
      I feel that the introduction to this article could have made this point more clearly.  While the author provides many examples to support their argument, the main idea is somewhat lost.  The examples could have been better integrated into the explanation of our subconscious visual perceptions instead of providing for the bulk of the written content.