Hi panel member!
Welcome to my portfolio website! I’ve learned a lot in my two years at Freestyle Academy and have completed a lot of different projects, but two really stick out.
First, Surrealism
In the beginning of senior year we were assigned the surrealist project. We were asked to research a classic surrealist artist, do a presentation on them, and then create a surrealist art piece ourselves.
I really liked the presentation portion because I like learning a lot of about something really specific. I researched the artist Leonora Carrington. Her adolescence, romantic life, and perspective as a female artist of the time was really interested to learn about
Here’s my presentation if you’re interested in learning more
After the presentation, it was time to create something ourselves. I’d never created anything surrealist before and didn’t really know where to draw inspiration from. My design teacher, Ms. P had us do some brainstorming that really helped my creative process. I decided that I wanted to juxtapose images from my home and childhood with things more abstract. The message that the piece is supposed to convey is that even when you find yourself in a place unfamiliar, by sticking to your roots you’ll find your way.
For this project I used Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator to mix the images together. Some of the photos I took myself and some I retrieved from the internet. Part of the reason this project stands out to me is that this was one of the first projects where I asked for a lot of help from my peers. My tendency with projects is to do what I can and try new things, but then just stick to what I know if I can’t figure it out myself. I wanted it to be different this time and so I asked my classmates to help me accomplish what I wanted to. I’m really happy with how it turned out. I’m okay with the fact that a lot of people may not understand my reasoning, I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback regardless.
Second, Zenith
For our final unit at Freestyle we were all assigned the Zenith project. This project was aimed to be the ultimate project of everything that we had previously learned and created. There were no limits to what we wanted to do and the timeline in which we were going to do it. I was unsure as to what I wanted to do until I watched a YouTube video titled “How to Make A Zine”. I had never heard of a zine before and I was intrigued. I was sent down this rabbit hole of DIY culture. I decided that this was going to be my project where I’d create zines myself, but also educate others about the history and importance of them through my research paper.
If you’re interested in reading my paper-
WHAT IS A ZINE?
It’s defined by Merriam-Webster as “a noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject matter”. The first noted individuals to make zines were science fiction authors in the 1920s. They were frustrated because they weren’t being published by mainstream publishers. They banded together and started making these homemade pamphlets and sharing them with one another. After that the zine world has been home to a lot of minority groups who shared the same struggles as those sci-fi writers. One could argue that zines reached their peak popularity during the 1970s as they were a large part of the 1970’s punk rock movement. Today zines still live through people who are passionate for DIY. More recently they have started to make the move towards digital, something that I attempted to do in this project.
WHY ARE ZINES IMPORTANT?
Zines are important because they give people, who’d normally be rejected in mainstream media, a voice to share what they want.
BuJo
For my personal zine I wanted to try a lot of things that I’d never done before. I figured since I was already out of my comfort zone making the zine in the first place, why not just push it to a different level. First, I wanted to somehow make the zine world seem applicable to myself specifically. I had done all this research for my paper about zines and really admired the people creating them, but couldn’t help but notice the stark difference between them and myself. My friend, Lauren came up with the idea to take inspiration from my bullet journal. If you’re not familiar with a bullet journal it’s essentially a mix between a journal, a to-do list, and a calendar. I often use my bullet journal to feed my creative energy into. It’s also where I came up with the name “BuJo”- it being a nickname for bullet journal on social media.
Beams
For my group zine I had this vision that I wanted to represent people who don’t have the kind of platform that Freestyle students have. I wanted to display what people are proud of in their own lives. The end result is a lot different than the initial idea for the zine, but I really like how it turned out. I have myself included at the end of this zine because the personal zine was a great character building experience and it was something that surprised me with what I learned from it.
my website
bye freestyle
I will never forget my time at Freestyle. The skills that I’ve learned and the things I’ve learned about myself are things I’m not sure would have happened had I stayed in traditional school. I’m sad to say goodbye of course, but I feel far more equipped heading into my next chapter of life.