Exemplar from a prior year’s project reflection

Assemble a collection of the work you produced during the week and comment on the process and what you are learning . . .

The materials I decided to use to create this work both reflect the messages I wanted to express through them, as well as myself. The work in the pages utilizes stark contrast with an absence of shading and softer lifework. I wanted the contrast to continue in the pages themselves. So I decided to have alternating black and white pages with bold lines in a limited color pallet drawn over them.

My work revolves around a few core ideas and motifs. There are three symbols that appear repeatedly and were the most important elements I wanted to showcase.

The first is a self portrait. The portrait is not realistic or designed to mimic what I look like in person, but rather is an idealized image of myself. The portrait has a strong jawline and more toned features that while suggesting it is me, remains abstract.

The second major image is the rose. The symbolism of the rose is important to me. The rose symbolizes love and beauty, but also pain. Its petals are beautiful but its thorns are painful. Love can be beautiful, like the petals, but also costly and heartbreaking, like the stem.

The third symbol is the horseshoe crab. A lost and lonely me once walked down beach to find a horseshoe crab trapped in a tide pool left from the receding water. The horseshoe crab had traveled far down the bank of pool unable to find its way out and awaiting its death. When I found it I placed it back in the ocean where it crawled away. The horseshoe crab and I were similar that day, we both couldn’t find our way out of something. We were the only two things on the beach, and I felt especially connected to it in that experience.