Reflections
Introduction
Coming into our senior year of high school, the Freestyle teachers gave us an opportunity to reflect on our lives and values up to this point. The Reflections unit involved writing a personal essay in English, a video about ourselves in Film, and a series of projects in Digital Media that allowed us to meditate on our core values. Through all of our courses, the unit guided us towards answering the question: “Who am I?”
It was a very revealing unit; it really called upon us to identify where we stood as people. When faced with recognizing the pillars of my identity, I learned that the values I hold dearest are ambition, curiosity, creativity, community, and growth. (The video included below is a placeholder).
Mandalas
Before this project, I thought that mandalas were simply a cool and alternative version of artwork. I had no idea about the thought and emotion that goes into them. Each circle within a mandala can have a different meaning, but they tend to carry the same overall message. I chose to make my mandala a symbol of growing up.
To create my mandala, To Touch the Stars, I used illustrator, utilizing tools like clipping masks and brush strokes. We started by creating blank templates for options with various numbers of “slices”, which show how many times our drawings will be reflected around the center of the circle.
BW Mandala Artist Statement: This piece, to me, is about growing up. My birthday just passed, so I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting over the past 18 years of my life. At the center of my mandala is an image I’ve known for my whole life. It’s the way that my dad draws smiley faces. It’s familiar, nostalgic, and grounding. It’s something I can always come back to. It’s my roots. Which is why the rest of my mandala grows out into trees and nature, which then become stars. I think that’s what growing up is. Growing your branches and embodying new shapes and colors. You have to do that before you’re ready to become a star.
Colored Mandala Artist Statement: In adding color to my mandala, I wanted to emphasize the feeling of growing up. I used a dark purple to exemplify the dark moments that accompany maturation, but I chose to use overall warm colors to show that the warmth I was shown throughout my life has made me who I am.
I really appreciate how the Mandala Project allowed me to visualize my values, providing me with an outlet to present the culmination of what growing up has meant to me, and how I’m feeling as I go through my final months of high school.
Personal Essay
In English, we were tasked with writing a personal essay that could be sent to college. The goal of the essay was to reflect on ourselves, how we’ve grown, and what values have led us there. It was a process that required a lot of brainstorming and meditation on our deepest values. Through heavy introspection and a series of revisions, I was able to identify my greatest point of growth in how my view of the world has changed.
Film Productions
In Film, we took our introspection from English and brought it into a visual format. We made a video essay in which we reflected on the deepest parts of ourselves within two minutes. The hardest part of this assignment was compartmentalizing all those pieces of ourselves into such a short time frame.
In preparation for this assignment, we made several short exercises, such as the 1 Period Movie, Rotation Video, and Surround Sound Video.
This unit taught me a lot about expressing yourself through film, how collaboration works in the industry, and how to fine-tune film work under time constraints.