Artist Statement

I will try to do one thing every day that scares me. In sophomore year, I decided to longboard down a hill which I wasn’t nearly skilled enough to take on. Although I did not know what the outcome of my actions would be, I decided to take the plunge. The picture on the left is taken on a road and from the perspective of the bottom of the pavement. The focal point of the image which stands out from the rest of it is the yellow lines in the center of the road, which is a metaphor for the path we take that will lead us into the future. I chose only to capture a small segment of the road as compared to the entire length of it, because at any given moment, we cannot see exactly what is ahead- all we can see is what is right in front of us, and while we do know that there is something ahead, we have no idea what it will be for certain unless we go down that road.

Surely enough, I smacked the ground at thirty five miles per hour, ending up with scarlet colored knees and elbows. The image on the right was taken from the bottom of the hill on the ground and with a shallow depth of field. My decision to use a shallow depth of field was one of metaphorical reason- the focus is on the yellow lines, or path, right in front of me. You can still see the hill that was just traveled down, but it is blurred due to the fact that while we must not focus too much on the past, it should be remembered nonetheless. On the more literal side, I chose to take this lying down because I was, in fact, lying on the ground. At the end of this experience, although I had sustained bloody knees and elbows, I was able to grow and learn my limits, and now I can tell people “I rode down that hill”- I’ll just be sure to leave out that tiny detail about falling.