{"id":49,"date":"2018-10-12T22:20:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T22:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freestyleacademy.rocks\/~NikoJ\/?page_id=49"},"modified":"2020-06-02T04:51:45","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T04:51:45","slug":"reflection","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/freestyleacademy.rocks\/~NikoJ\/reflection\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the Reflections Unit, the 1st unit for Seniors. The main question to answer with this unit was “Who am I?” Each of our classes had some assignments that were used to help answer this question. In our Digital Media class, we made a mandala and a perspective video. In English, we made a personal essay, which doubled as a college essay, which, to be honest, I’m not comfortable sharing anymore. We also made a\u00a0 “personal museum curation,” which I will explain later. In our Animation class, we had several assignments that said bits and pieces about who we were, such as a Google doodle and a 3D object. The thing that I valued the most when it came to answering who I was was the personal essay because that got me to think about my past experiences and how I learned from them. The other assignments were much smaller when it came to answering the question compared to the essay.<\/p>\n

Before we started on our essays, we made a list of 20 “essence objects,” which was meant to help us answer the question:<\/p>\n

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  1. My red LEGO Star Wars shirt<\/span><\/li>\n
  2. A deck of UNO cards<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. A dozen Khinkalis<\/span><\/li>\n
  4. A Shadow the Hedgehog plushie<\/span><\/li>\n
  5. A small red vestment<\/span><\/li>\n
  6. A necklace with a cross<\/span><\/li>\n
  7. An Avengers: Endgame movie ticket<\/span><\/li>\n
  8. A physical copy of Speed Racer<\/span><\/li>\n
  9. A Little Mac Amiibo<\/span><\/li>\n
  10. A pouch that says \u201cBritish Airways Operated by B|MED\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  11. A stick of Right Guard deodorant<\/span><\/li>\n
  12. A MacBook<\/span><\/li>\n
  13. A Black Belt<\/span><\/li>\n
  14. A LEGO Captain Rex Minifigure<\/span><\/li>\n
  15. A photo of me and my extended family<\/span><\/li>\n
  16. A list of my phone numbers<\/span><\/li>\n
  17. A table tennis paddle<\/span><\/li>\n
  18. A tennis racket<\/span><\/li>\n
  19. A fingerboard sheet<\/span><\/li>\n
  20. A cold pack<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Each of these objects represents who I am in some way. Some objects are more obvious in the ways they represent me than others. One of these objects was the starting point for my Personal Essay, and 3 of the objects were the starting point to the first 3D model I made.<\/p>\n

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    Personal Museum Curation<\/h1>\n

    Earlier in the year, we took our second trip to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SF MOMA), and we had an assignment to make a personal museum. We had to take photos of 5 pieces of art, 3 of which represented us and would be a piece of art we would put into our museum, and 2 of them would be pieces that didn’t represent us, and wouldn’t be in our museum.<\/p>\n

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    The Art I Would Add to my Personal Museum<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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    The reason that this art piece represents something about me is because of the simplicity of the piece. On the one hand, it\u2019s a very nice and simple piece of art that can very easily be interpreted as a person running. Given how poorly I tend to think of my art as, as long as I can portray what I\u2019m trying to say, then it works. On the other hand, it reminds me of certain games like Minecraft. It\u2019s a reminder of my childhood and the games that I loved, and that\u2019s why it caught my attention so well.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    The reason that this art piece represents me is because of the kind of story it can tell. Whenever I look at the things I have done, I sometimes like to reminisce about the process and the story that led to that point. That\u2019s the vibe that I get from this piece. It makes me think a little bit about the context of this piece. The things that I make should have something to tell you, whether it\u2019s something important or not. Also, even though I\u2019m not much of a comic book guy, I like the comic book art style.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    While it does carry a lot of history, and it\u2019s really interesting, the reason that this piece represents me is because of the things it was made out of. Who takes lead and ash and says \u201clet\u2019s make a fighter jet out of it?\u201d I like how well it looks like a jet. It\u2019s a similar case about how I took my poor art skills and said: \u201clet\u2019s make a good documentary.\u201d I\u2019m very thankful for the compliments I received about it, and it\u2019s a reminder that good things can come from bad material.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    The Art I Wouldn\u2019t Add to my Personal Museum<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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    The reason that this piece doesn\u2019t represent me is because of the way that it combines 2 completely different looking things. While I think that such a thing can work very well (i.e. The Amazing World of Gumball), it doesn\u2019t work for me here. When I make a video or something, I want to keep the style consistent. This is what I think makes my art less out of place and more bearable. If the art is simple, I want it to be consistently simple. If the art is more complex, I want it to be consistently complex.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    What is this? Why is this? Why is this in a museum? This says multiple things about this society that I don\u2019t like. When I think about trying to be successful in anything, I think that it should take at least a little effort. What effort when into a red square? Also, this says a lot about why I don\u2019t like most modern art. So many people are trying to be so abstract about what they make, trying to give something multiple possible meanings, that they don\u2019t realize that they end up crossing a line that just gives their art no meaning. You can look at what I make or do, and you can gain at least some context. I don\u2019t get anything out of this square, and it bothers me that this can be successful. Get a load of this society.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Conclusion<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

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    When I look at my art, I think of how far I can take my artistic ability, and the things that I like. When I make my pieces, I like to throw in references or touches that represent things I like, such as parts of pop culture and video games, and well as other things. I see my art as a reflection of what I know what to do, and the extent of my ability. I have made things by hand, on Photoshop, Illustrator, SFM, and other things, and each tool I used was done to the extent of my ability, and what came out is what came out. If it\u2019s good, good. If it\u2019s bad, good. I know what I can do, and that\u2019s the best I can be.\u00a0The art I picked is a representation of the things that I like and the extent of my ability. I like simple things, I like Minecraft-looking things, I like cool vehicles, I like fun comic art and guns and other things. I don\u2019t like inconsistency, poor mixtures, and putting no effort into things.<\/span><\/p>\n

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    Mandala<\/h1>\n

    The 1st project in Digital Media for this unit was to make 2 different mandalas, both of which would be a form of representation of who we were. You could portray this in any way you wanted, as long as it was done in a mandala. A mandala is a circular shape with a repeating pattern several times in a radius of sorts. One mandala had to be in color, so we could use the color in the drawings and the drawings themselves to represent who we were, and one had to be in black and white, which would achieve the same goal, just without color, and this mandala would be laser printed on a material of our choice, like wood, bamboo, acrylic, or plastic. I chose to print my mandala on a gold and black plastic, where the laser would print on a gold sheet and reveal black underneath it.<\/p>\n

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    This is a photo of a customized Zapworks logo that we made for our black and white mandala. You need an app on your phone called Zappar, and you use it to scan the logo in the middle to get a video of us explaining how we appreciated this project and why we did what we did for our mandala. Here’s a link to the video itself:<\/p>\n

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