Intro

The Reflections Unit at Freestyle was an important experience, as it taught me more about myself and what art skills I have and value. During this unit, we did a multitude of assignments that all revolved around the concept of “Self.” In English, we worked on Personal Essays, and read the book “Citizen” by Claudia Rankine, while in Digital Media we worked on a series of projects about ourselves and what we enjoy doing. In Design, we worked on perfecting skills and a “PSA” project inspired by our Personal Essays.

One of our entries in our brainstorm sessions in English was titled “the Essence Objects Brainstorm.” The premise of this exercise was to help us brainstorm possible topics for our personal essays. Our list pretty much reflects what physical objects are important to us.

My list is mostly composed of comfort objects that helped me through my years in middle school.

  1. JVC Boombox, broken right speaker
  2. Trampoline
  3. Alphabet sheets
  4. Limited edition Ghost Quartet Libretto
  5. Rainbow skeleton t-shirt
  6. Neon purple and yellow fleece jacket
  7. Neon orange turtleneck jacket
  8. Doctor Who “Amy” Figurine
  9. My “McDonalds” wario painting
  10. Lemony Snicket’s The Bad Beginning
  11. A well-worn copy of Shel Silverstein’s Where the Sidewalk Ends
  12. A necklace with a glass pendant, filled with colors in a spiral galaxy shape
  13.  A faded vinyl press sailor moon shirt with the words “who run the world” and “GRL PWR” on it
  14.  A faux-leather bound notebook with music score detailing on the cover
  15.  An old black harajuku purse
  16.  A pair of earrings with eyes surrounded by colored fringe
  17.  A pair of beat-up white sony headphones
  18.  A bracelet with plastic beads spelling out “FEMINOID”
  19. A small “totoro” coin purse
  20. A “TARDIS” made out of duct tape

Personal Museum Curation

One of the assignments in Digital Media/English was the Personal Museum Curation, which allowed us to consider what art pieces we related to the most. Using pieces that we found in the SF MoMA, we crafted a list of images with explanations as to why we related to these pieces specifically.

This piece represents me because of the significance of eyes and voyeurism in our society that has leaked through into my life by the use of social media to showcase my life and interests. I really enjoy the composition of the piece, and the eye resonates with me the most.

(Untitled by Jaromir Funke)

 

This piece represents me because it connects to the isolationism I feel/channel frequently. The composition allows for the subject to be dead center to represent isolation. Having the title on the piece itself also influenced my choice, making me feel like this person is isolated and that’s wrong. I see myself in that, through recognising that something is wrong but not being able to do much about it.

[Wrong (Version #2) by John Baldessari]

This photograph represents me through my interpretation of self-image and self-love. The distortion heavily resonates with my warped view of self and my struggle for self-love.

 

(Lighting Test Woman by Sara Cwynar)

 

 

 

 

For this assignment, we had to deliberately explain 2 pieces we chose to exclude from our “personal museum.”

As much as I enjoy this piece artistically, I do not resonate with it as much as the first three.

(Mural of Venus on Roller Skates)

 

I find this piece difficult to relate to due to its simplicity/minimalism.

 

In conclusion, I relate to the three pieces chosen, as I feel they reflect the conceptual aspects of my art, including a lot about the self and the struggle to accept oneself.I enjoy all of these art pieces, though the 3 I chose to include are what I aspire my art to reflect/include visual elements reminiscent of these pieces.

 

 

 

 

Mandala

The Senior Mandala Project was extremely fun to partake in! We were instructed to make a mandala in Adobe Illustrator using any visuals we wanted. Using an instructional video, I set up my Illustrator document to have a repeating clipping mask, allowing everything I drew to reflect and repeat. For my visuals, I was heavily inspired by a character’s design from Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure named “Foo Fighters.” This character is often shown drinking water, hence the liquid visuals and water cup.

 

 

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Personal Essay

In our English class, another response to “Who Am I?” that we tackled was with our Personal Essay. It was used to have us consider important moments, items, and experiences that define us. For my essay, I chose to talk about my struggle with school while discovering cosplay.

I was at a particularly low point in the middle part of junior year. School had been stressing me out intensely, and I felt unable to find any inspiration or motivation to keep going. My struggle was beginning to affect those around me, particularly my friends, teachers, and family. I was finding it hard to be around even those who loved me unconditionally. A close friend of mine invited me to her house one day to help me relax and assist her with a costume she was making. 

At the time, I barely knew what “cosplay” even was, but I needed any opportunity available to take my mind off of school, so I went along with it. As I helped her with her costume, she noted that I seemed much more at peace doing a project like this than I had seemed for the past months. Like a sewing machine groaning to life, I began to plan out a costume. I thought through every decision that would need to be made, every seam, every pin, every stitch that would make up my costume. 

My friends and I decided to attend a convention in May, which gave us a deadline. I was determined to do justice to the costume I chose. Working on the project was a godsend. It gave me freedom from school that I so desperately needed, and increased my motivation in life over all. At the same time, I found myself more determined to put in effort at school, and my mental health improving as a result. Outside of school, I did everything I could to work on the costume, saving up whatever money I had to buy fabrics and spending late nights at a friend’s house to further my progress. 

As the school year neared an end, I unfortunately began to notice my motivation for school being overshadowed by my desire to work more on my costume. When the convention finally came around, my costume was barely finished, and my grades at school were still subpar. But I felt refreshed somehow. It was one of the first times in ages that I had been able to make something completely on my own, and of my own volition, that I truly believed in. 

As I entered the convention decked out in the costume I made completely on my own, I could feel that I was finally doing something I truly loved. I felt proud of all of the hard work I put in. I was finally able to find an interest that suited me and helped keep myself inspired in all aspects of my life. The convention was filled with people were the same as me, with similar interests and passions, and I finally felt like I was somewhere I truly belonged. Although I still have a long way to go at improving at costuming, time management, and scholastic studies, I feel more ready than ever to learn as much as I can.

I feel like this essay helped me more solidify who I am and how I want to present myself to the world.

Perspective Piece

For my Perspective piece I chose to write about my opinions on character biases and why some people may relate more strongly to a specific character than another.

“Occasionally, when someone has a favorite character from a work of fiction, it follows the themes of people they know and how they feel about themselves in real life. Oftentimes, it isn’t necessarily something they see in themselves, but what the WANT to see in themselves. They see this character as a more virtuous/flawed version of themselves or others.

I’ll use one of my favorite fictional characters as an example.

Here is my favorite character from an anime I watch, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This character’s name is Jolyne Kujo. Technically she hasn’t been animated yet in the show, but her part in the manga is coming soon.

Anyway, just straight off the bat, looking at her, she’s very muscular, with an angry face and stubborn demeanor. She appears to be expecting problems to ruin her day, giving her the air of someone ready to fight at any minute.

Looking closer at what attracts me about her brings me to her character/personality. Her written character is very timid to begin with, when the reader first meets her. She is scared of the prison guards that are transferring her to a high security prison, but as she meets other characters in the new prison, her character arc develops.

She ends up being very bold in what she says and how she acts, but only doing certain actions when they benefit her. However, her character develops more as she tries to help characters that need her.

I would say that I personally relate to this character because she always does the right thing despite being scared or worried for her or others’ lives. I respect that trait a lot, and want to see myself more in that position.

A more generalised example of people relating to their favorite fictional characters is the ever-popular Jughead Jones (originally from the Archie comics). He was featured in the “Archie”-based live-action TV show, Riverdale. I believe that his personality is the basis of his relatability. He’s often closed off, tired, and yet, in a way, he’s extremely edgy and invested in the affairs of others. He has a lot of issues with his father, and has a very strained relationship with adults because of it. 

I believe the reason so many people relate to him/consider him their favorite character is due to aloofness. Some people may specifically relate him to someone they know in person who they are romantically attracted to. The reason they may project Jughead onto them is due to him seeming uninterested, but actually being quite invested in others.

Another reason Jughead is so relatable to others is due to his strained relationship with adults. Many of those who watch Riverdale and similar shows (generally those from 12-17) have strained relationships with parents, and find Jughead as a valid explanation for their pain, and someone to identify with.”

Production Class (DESIGN WORK)

The work we did in Design was, and always will be, my favorite. This unit, we focused on perfecting Macro photography, as well as exploring editing, as shown by the Final Edited Macro Photo to the left. The process of editing was to use a guide on 1 out of 40 editing techniques. The one I chose gives a soft-lit and comfortable look to any photo. I believe this technique effectively worked on the image I took. Following the step-by-step tutorial was fairly simple, and gave a lot of leeway for individual changes and preferences. I’m very satisfied with how the final photo looks.

 

 

Using the photos we took in the Macro exercise, we chose a photo we enjoyed for our next project. Zooming in on the photo, we drew a close-up abstract version of what we saw. For my drawing, I drew a close-up of a photo I had taken of a leaf. In doing this project, I found it quite difficult to use the chalk pastels to create a realistic/surreal image, due to my inexperience with chalk pastels. If I were to try the project again, I would work more on a layering technique than getting the colors as saturated as possible right off the bat.

 

 

 

Finally, the biggest project we worked on this unit was the PSA project, inspired by our Personal Essays we wrote in English class. The PSA project allowed us to express a side of ourselves we wanted to broadcast to the world using words and imagery. For the “slogan” of my PSA I chose to express the general idea of my essay in the phrase “Find Your Passion, Find Your Soul.” I believe that this statement is very powerful. In my experiences in discovering who I am, expressing my interests in different art media and topics definitely helped me solidify my identity further.