As a writer, I am quite obviously a verbal person. I love words, I love how they look and sound and sometimes certain ones get stuck in my head like songs. My fiancee is my window into the visual world, she’s a painter and creating art is as vital to her as air and water.

One of my favorite things as a verbal person is to watch visual people struggle to utilize the more narrow constructs of written language to express what it is that they create artistically. Interestingly enough, some people excel at both creating and naming their work, while others hardly seem to have a hard time with the latter.

I’ve found that when naming pieces, artist tend to end up in one of three camps.

There are the literalists:

"Leaves and Styrofoam" by Mandy Hudson on Zatista.com

"Sisters Crouch" by Anki King on Zatista.com

And The Untitleds:

"Untitled" by Noe Badillo on Zatista.com

"410 Untitled" by Mary Lea Bradley on Zatista.com

But for me, art is at its best when the visual and the verbal are combined. Some artists just have a way with wording their titles, they fold together like poetry, adding an element of literary symbolism to the expressive aspects of the piece.

"Not Waving but Drowning" by Edward Zalinsky

"The Nine Front" by Kelly Rae Cunningham