Evan Segelke

Reflections

Introduction

Who am I? Talk about yourself. Those were the fundamental ideas of this unit, talking about yourself and answering the question “Who am I”. This all had me feeling quite apprehensive. I generally don’t share my inner thoughts or personality so openly, so it felt like a tall order to answer “Who am I”. This project gave me a firm shove out of my comfort zone. I valued how it allowed me to articulate a lot about myself in creative ways without sharing too much. It helped me show a lot of what I personally value.

Mandala

For our Mandala project, we used Illustrator to make symmetrical repeating art. There were no specifics on what we had to draw, we had full creative freedom to represent ourselves. You could draw random scribbles while blindfolded or make a meticulous masterpiece. Whatever you wanted.

My black and white Mandala
My Colored Mandala
This is a video which gives an in-depth look at my mandala
This is my finished mandala engraved on wood

Artist Statement: Spider Web Speaker

When making both my colored and black and white Mandalas I valued the lack of structure and a large amount of creative freedom in these assignments. I was able to draw whatever I wanted which I had a lot of fun with. I may not be the most talented sketch artist especially when using a mouse but I was able to bring my ideas to life and make a large interconnected drawing. I also valued that this assignment would serve as a fun and calming break from other school work.

This assignment also made me realize how much I like symbols and hidden references. In the process of making my black and white Mandala, I tried to throw in as many symbols as I could that were meaningful to me. Some of these may be more obvious such as the film reel because I’m a film student who enjoys films, but some of them would most likely only make sense to me. Normally when I play a video game or watch a movie I would be able to enjoy all the easter eggs the directors and developers added. When making my Mandala I got to feel like I was on the other side of the process making all the various easter eggs and references. Some video game developers use phrases such as “every pixel placed with care”, and I felt that in my Mandala I had an “every drawing drawn with care” policy.

Film

Inspired by an old Chapman prompt, I was tasked with creating a two-minute video essay that showed my thought process in a narrative style. The video essay follows a true story of a time I picked up a to-go pizza order while wearing pajamas, and it traces my thought process through tangents and anxiety attacks, all the while including what my film teacher described as my ‘signature humor’.

Filming this was a bit of a challenge since I was the main actor and there was a global pandemic in full swing. There were a few shots where I filmed myself using the cameras autofocus features. My friend Rachel, who is in my quarantine group, helped a lot by operating the camera and acting as well. Overall I think the video essay turned out really well.

This is my video essay
This what my Premiere Pro files looks like while I’m editing
This is what Premiere Pro looks like when I’m adding effects

This I Believe

This project began in English class with our ‘This I Believe’ Essay. I had to write an essay starting with a belief statement about something we genuinely value. My belief was that reading can make you feel less alone, and my essay centers around how my favorite author, Jenny Lawson, helped me feel like a part of a community through her memoirs, which candidly discusses her own mental health and childhood. Next, I began gathering visuals for the video. We could use found or created images. Personally, I wanted to show my thought process with my own drawing and I found drawing to be a nice break from regular school work. My essay centers around my favorite author, Jenny Lawson, and the only visuals I didn’t create were her book covers and a picture of her at a book read. The finished animated video is featured below. I’m pretty happy with how everything came together, although there are certainly areas I can improve.

My This I Believe video
This is what my After Effects window looked like while I was making the video
This is another look at how I made this video, using several compositions and keyframes

Reading Raccoons

~

Evan Segelke

I believe that words can make you feel less alone. That reading can bring you comfort.

At the start of my freshman year I felt fairly isolated. My “friends” from middle school tended to ignore me and I didn’t feel very close to anyone. I would get to school early and struggle to decide what to do.  One morning I decided to read on a bench near my first class of the day. It started as just a regular way to kill time. Until the morning I picked up a memoir titled “Furiously Happy” written by Jenny Lawson featuring an ecstatic raccoon on the cover. At a glance, I should have felt nothing in common with a woman who grew up in impoverished rural Texas. Yet somehow her brutally honest stories and quirky sense of humor made me feel like I wasn’t just another invisible roaming the halls of high school.“Furiously Happy” and many of her other works reminded me that I’m not alone in feeling alone. 

However, my freshman year was not an isolated instance.

Throughout my life, I’ve struggled with finding my people. Sometimes I’ve wanted to hide from the world under my desk and never come back up. When I feel this way I’ve found shelter in the pages of books. I’ve been able to read about Lawson’s comedic and traumatic experiences of having a taxidermist father in stories like “Stanley, the Magical Talking Squirrel”  and then feel like there’s a place in this world for weirdos like me.

I’m not trying to suggest that books are a substitute for friends. I don’t think becoming a hermit who never leaves the library is the solution to anxiety, but there is something about hearing the genuine thoughts of others as you read that helps me empathize. In my experience reading has helped me build the confidence to reach out and connect.

Over the years I’ve started to open up more, make a few friends, and even join a program designed for creatives. Despite making as much progress as I have towards a physical community I still work time into my schedule to use Lawson’s most recent self-help coloring book. Reading reminds me that I am part of a community, however invisible it may be.

Photoshop Watercolor effect

Next, we learned how to use Photoshop to transform photos to look like watercolor paintings. I used photos I took while on backpacking trips and one of my grandma’s dog. The results are featured below.

This is a photo I took while backpacking in Yosemite, then I made it look like watercolor in Photoshop
I used the same process on this photo of my Grandmas wacky dog
This was a photo of my friends Cary and Trevor sitting on a cliff looking at the sky