The Reflections unit was all about asking ourselves, who am I am who have I become? These questions were first asked when we started writing our personal statements for the common app. They were used so we could narrow down exactly what we wanted to write about in order to make the best college essay we could. We also asked these questions about us and society while we read Citizen by Claudia Rankine. We analyzed the experiences of people of color in America and how they compare to ours. In design, we created PSAs based on our personal Statements to express the qualities that make us unique. Speaking of Uniqueness, In digital Media, we made mandalas to express our voice which were cut out of wood with a laser printer.

Essence Objects

We narrowed ourselves down by listing our most valued items/items that represent us the best. My list included my blue Yamaha BB404 bass guitar (affectionately referred to as “Patrick”) and my Green Baritone Hoodie. My full list is as follows

  1. Blue Yamaha BB404 Bass guitar
  2. Copy of Fallout: New Vegas
  3. custom built PC
  4. Samsung Galaxy s7 smartphone
  5. Earbuds/headphones
  6. Fender MIM Stratocaster
  7. Red Kramer Nightrider 
  8. Cheap goodwill Soundsystem
  9. Martin acoustic
  10. Handbuilt “Trashocaster” guitar
  11. Upright bass
  12. Trombone 
  13. Canon DSLR Camera
  14. Converses with cheap pink laces
  15. My green MB baritone hoodie
  16. My red hoodie
  17. Dvd set of the Lord of the Rings trilogy
  18. My own Documentary book “Old Europe in Silicon Valley”
  19. Blood Sugar Sex Magik CD
  20. My grandma’s Thit Kho
  21. Bowl of Pho

Personal Museum Curation

Jeremy Hahn

S(ea) F(ood) Coma

The Chronicles of San Francisco

JR

Image result for jr chronicles of san francisco

When I saw this gigantic photo mural in the SFMOMA the other day, I knew I had to add it to my personal museum. The Chronicles of San Francisco by JR is a love letter to the people and the city of San Francisco. It shows people of all walks of life coming together as one big community. I feel that this photo reflects my value of diversity. As someone of mixed heritage, culture, and ethnicity, diversity is one of my most valued traits in society. This mural shows SF as a diverse melting pot of all kinds of people. One big stew with ingredients from everywhere including noodles from East Asia, Spices from India, Meat from Africa, bread from Europe, and vegetables from Latin America. I believe that a society can not function without differing perspectives. That’s how we get different solutions to problems.

Palmen(Palm Trees)

Sigmar Polke 

Image result for palmen sigmar polke

I also used this painting for my ekphrastic poem my junior year so I felt that it would be appropriate to put in my own personal museum. However my connection to it doesn’t only extend to my poem, but I also connect with this piece’s value of creativity. Despite it just being a painting of a couple of palm trees in a desert town, looking deeper into the piece can reveal a whole new meaning to it. First off, the piece is rather minimal, the whole thing is made out of dots scattered throughout the canvas. The dots also serve to create a fake noise look which could be interpreted as a sandstorm that obstructs the view and hides a lot of the town. This type of creativity is one that I enjoy putting into my own work, and I really hope to experiment more with different kinds of looks and moods in the future.

Confections

Wayne Thiebaud

Image result for wayne thiebaud confections

Why would I say that this piece speaks to me? Well I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s just because it seems like something I’d create. Or maybe it’s because it speaks to my value of enjoyment. I feel that it’s very important to take some time to just chill and have some fun every once in a while. I feel like this painting reflects that message well. It’s nothing special, and it doesn’t have to be anything special. It’s just a fun and cute painting of ice cream. And who doesn’t love that?

What I would exclude

Big Crinkly

Alexander Calder’

big crinkly

This piece just doesn’t mean anything. Not a single thing. It doesn’t help that it’s hideous and ugly. It’s just a metal square blob. It’s not interesting or fun or anything. It just doesn’t speak to me at all. Maybe I’m not getting something but it kinda just seems like bland art without meaning to me.

National Velvet

Andy Warhol

Image result for national velvet andy warhol

Like the previous one, this one just doesn’t do it for me. I just don’t feel any connection to it. It’s just a bunch of the same picture of a girl on a horse. I don’t see anything in it. 

Conclusion

How has my art style/taste impacted my personal museum? Well, I’d say that most of the pieces that I put into my museum were pieces that I would also make. A lot of my visual artwork, despite a lot of them only being logos, has a sense of cohesion and fun. Big Crinkly and National Velvet don’t seem to have much cohesion to me. And with no context, they’re not all that fun either. Maybe I’m just not good at analyzing art, but if I’m not feeling or connecting with a particular piece it’s hard for me to find a lot to say about it.

Personal Mandala

What was the point of the mandala project? Well, I guess if I were to sum it up in one word, it would be expression. More specifically personal expression. With little restrictions on the contents of the mandala, the only real rules of the project were to one: make it a mandala, and two: make it unapologetically you. I seriously appreciated how independent this project was. Free reign meant a lot of experimentation and creativity, which made the project really fun. I started mine out just making some doodles. However, after a good amount of time into it, I felt it might be cool to try to make it look like a teenager’s doodle covered notebook. So I added some math equations and “work” here and there to give it a notebook kinda feel. At the end of it all, I’m proud of my work, and I do believe it represents me.

We had two mandalas. One was black and white which we laser printed on wood, the other had color which we didn’t print on wood.

For the colored mandala I chose a color scheme of blues oranges and grays to give off a seashore vibe.

Personal Essay

At the beginning of the year, we wrote our personal statements for the common app. I wrote mine about how my love for building things.


I also used this essay as the focus for my perspective video.

Design Work

We started Design this year with some projects reminiscent of last year.

We did macro photography again. We took some pictures around the neighborhood and then edited them in Photoshop. I took a photo of a leaf and made it look like an old polaroid photo. We then made pastel recreations of more macro photos.

We used the skills from these assignments to create PSAs. My PSA was related to the message of creativity and imagination in my personal essay. To mirror this I Photoshopped a cardboard box skyscraper into a city skyline in downtown San Jose.