Wednesday 19 October 2011

QUESTIONS TO ASK MYSELF

My proverb/idiom 'there is more than one way to skin a cat', is most commonly known to mean that there is more than one way to do something, there is more than one solution to a problem. In a way, this can be seen as something quite optimistic, in a sense it's saying if you can't do something, then don't worry, try again another way. 
I've always found this a bit weird in some cases, because there may be more than on way to do something, but surely there's one way that must be most efficient. Before doing something, you should think about circumstance, situation, and how you're going to apply what it is you're doing. The vast majority of the time, there's an obvious solution to certain problems. I guess though, sometimes it can be more creative coming up with a range of answers, and for example, when it comes to maths problems, sometimes you can reach the exact some answer but through a different route.
I'm rambling...


What am I trying to say?



To begin with, I immediately reached out to any possible witty responses I could produce from my idiom 'there is more than one way to skin a cat'. I had all these ideas in my head about funny little responses to it, I think a funny answer just comes more naturally from it. 
Pretty much all of the designs I was coming up with were all very literal, a cat being unzipped from neck to naval for example (grim). There were a few funny things circling around google to do with the idiom, for example '50 ways to skin a cat' was pretty humorous, however I felt like I was going to really struggle going in this direction. For starters, i'm pretty sure I hold no skills in drawing hairless cats, at all.
It's not until I started really looking into the meaning and origin of the proverb/idiom that I got a good idea and understanding of what I really wanted to say with my work. Everyone wants to do something witty and funny, but I just didn't know where to go with it. After googling different ways of wording the proverb, I came across something quite interesting. I googled something along the lines of 'problems with more than one solution', and it came up with a lot of mathematical stuff. I got researching into this whole idea that you could ask someone to equally divide up a square, and get some very different responses that are all still correct. There's more than one way to equally split up a square into four, yet they all answer the 'problem'. 






Am I making a statement, delivering facts or posing a question?
With this piece, it is just a simple case of making a statement, making someone think and understand that in most cases there will always be more than one way to solve a problem. Hopefully it will make people wonder how they could apply this proverb to different aspects of their life.

Who is my audience? Age, groups, etc
- When I asked around my course group, not many people actually knew what my proverb meant?
- Can't target it at someone who won't understand it. Square idea is quite 'complicated' in a sense so I can't target it at too younger audience
- The proverb itself is quite grim, which raises the issue of who this would be appropriate for. An image of a hairless cat is also a bit off-putting
- Silly people who think there's only one answer to their problems...quite an optimistic proverb, if not a bit gruesome

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