The goal of this assignment was to create a piece of art that demonstrated an illusion of spatial depth that imposed the idea of foreground, middle ground, and background. I decided to use the Arabian Nights, a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales, to help me come up with a concept idea. I read the Tailor's Tale and decided that this would be a great story to help guide my art piece. I have included a short synopsis of the excerpt to give some background to my piece.

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“The Tailor” is telling this story to the king of China. At a banquet, a man refuses to enter when he recognizes a barber. The man says that the barber ruined his life. The man was from Baghdad and had fallen in love with a girl he’d never met before. A woman convinced the girl to meet with him and the man began preparing for their initial encounter. He went to the barber in order to shave his head, but the barber instead took out an astrolabe. The barber warned the man that the planets and stars were not aligned for meeting a stranger. He (the barber) went on to boast of his many different skills and professional qualities, all the while only shaving a few hair off of the man’s head. The barber then tried to block the man from leaving, claiming he was in danger [based on his astrolabe analysis]. The barber followed the man to his meeting and, thinking the man was in danger, caused a big disturbance in the streets of Baghdad. Because of this, the man had to escape in a chest and broke his leg when trying to get out of the chest to run away. The man was convinced the barber would never leave him alone because the barber ran after him afterwards claiming he’d just saved the man’s life. Seeing no other escape, the man sold all of his possessions and moved to a new country.