Digital Collage
"My normal"
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Meaning of piece:
I grew up having a normal life. Although, I do admit everyone has their own definition of normal. My normal was growing up with no dad and a single mother who worked her tail off to provide for me. She really is my everything and I am very thankful for having her in my life. She is one of the people who shaped me to be the way I am today. Growing up watching her everyday, tired from work and listening to her tell me that I need to do my best in school so I won't end up working in a job like hers, is the one thing that motivates me most to be successful in my life.
My normal was also being bullied from grades 3-7. I was surrounded by people who would call me fat and ugly and being so stupid and thinking that they were my friends and that they don't really mean it. They were just “saying those things as a joke”, when in reality they were not, they were serious. I do admit i'm not in the perfect shape and i'm not as skinny as other girls, but it took me so long to accept me from me. To be honest I haven't completely succeeded at that. Understanding that those people weren't my friends is taking me even longer. Every day since the beginning of third grade, I just kept denying to myself that I was bullied. I told myself that I was strong and I didn't pay attention. In reality, it would kill me inside. I kept saying to myself “you are strong, you can stand up for yourself”. In reality, standing up for myself made things even worse.
I thought high school was going to be the same thing, but to my surprise It wasn't. It was totally different. I made actual true friends that like me for me and that made me understand that not everyone is as judgmental as my classmates in middle school. I finally understood that not everyone lives for making others miserable. Although grades 3-7 were technically hell, it had a great impact on my life and also shaped me to be who I am today. Thanks to that I try my best to be less judgmental and to be a good person.
My normal was questioning everything and everyone in my life, especially me. Now my normal consists of amazing people that I really wish were in my life sooner and an amazing mother who made those years feel a little bit less like hell. Now I’m happy, not yet fully accepted who I am, but i’m getting there. I’m happy with the people that surround me now and i'm just happy that through those years of hell I didn't turn out to be a horrible person like they were. Now I try to make everyday positive and joyful, and try to stay away from people that were just like some of my classmates in middle school, and yeah once in awhile one person tries to bring me down but i've now learned from my past, I won't let them. I'm stronger than I was before that's thanks to my mom and the amazing people that surround me now and I really just want to stay happy.
My normal was also being bullied from grades 3-7. I was surrounded by people who would call me fat and ugly and being so stupid and thinking that they were my friends and that they don't really mean it. They were just “saying those things as a joke”, when in reality they were not, they were serious. I do admit i'm not in the perfect shape and i'm not as skinny as other girls, but it took me so long to accept me from me. To be honest I haven't completely succeeded at that. Understanding that those people weren't my friends is taking me even longer. Every day since the beginning of third grade, I just kept denying to myself that I was bullied. I told myself that I was strong and I didn't pay attention. In reality, it would kill me inside. I kept saying to myself “you are strong, you can stand up for yourself”. In reality, standing up for myself made things even worse.
I thought high school was going to be the same thing, but to my surprise It wasn't. It was totally different. I made actual true friends that like me for me and that made me understand that not everyone is as judgmental as my classmates in middle school. I finally understood that not everyone lives for making others miserable. Although grades 3-7 were technically hell, it had a great impact on my life and also shaped me to be who I am today. Thanks to that I try my best to be less judgmental and to be a good person.
My normal was questioning everything and everyone in my life, especially me. Now my normal consists of amazing people that I really wish were in my life sooner and an amazing mother who made those years feel a little bit less like hell. Now I’m happy, not yet fully accepted who I am, but i’m getting there. I’m happy with the people that surround me now and i'm just happy that through those years of hell I didn't turn out to be a horrible person like they were. Now I try to make everyday positive and joyful, and try to stay away from people that were just like some of my classmates in middle school, and yeah once in awhile one person tries to bring me down but i've now learned from my past, I won't let them. I'm stronger than I was before that's thanks to my mom and the amazing people that surround me now and I really just want to stay happy.
Artist Inspiration:
My artist inspiration was Rene Magritte, generally I received inspiration from one of his artwork, “The Victory”. When I saw the artwork the first thing that came to my head was the quote, “when one door closes another one opens”, not really sure why but that was the first thing that came to mind. I also thought about the quote, “opening the doors for new things”, I feel like the reason I thought about that was because of how he showed a sky without clouds and in the doorway there is a cloud coming out. Rene was a artist from the surrealist art movement. Rene's most important strategy in his artwork was repetition. He would create multiple copies of his art work, it is said that this might of came part from Freudian psychoanalysis, for which repetition is a sign of trauma. It is said that his illustrative pictures often results in a powerful paradox, they make people see something clear and beautiful but in their head it might be provoking unsettling thoughts.
"Rene Magritte." The Art Story. N.p., n.d. Web.
Planning:
This is the first idea that I came up after rereading my writing as well as looking for artist inspiration. I wanted to demonstrate how I've closed the door to the negative side of my past and closed the door of a part of my past that felt like hell.
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This is kinda the same consist as the fist sketch but decided to change the perspective.
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At the end I decided to combine both of my first sketches. For the back ground instead of doing the fire I decided to do a brick wall.
Process and Experimentation:
Step 1:Artist Inspiration: |
First thing I proceeded to do was find a artist inspiration, I looked through both my freshmen and sophomore Process Journals to find any artist that cought my eye. Rene Magritte was one of the artist who's work really interests me. I decided to look more into his art work and not just use art work that is more well known then others.
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Step 2: Sketches:
Step 3: Pictures:
Next step was to take pictures. I looked around my house and outside for places that represents my sketches.
Step 4:Experimentation:
overall this whole project was filled with experimentation. I have never used Photoshop before and only started this art piece with knowledge of simple techniques to use. When opening the program I mostly just tried to familiarize myself with it, and experimented with different filters, and other techniques. (shown below)
Reflection:
Overall I really liked this project, I always wanted to learn how to use Photoshop. It was fun learning new techniques on Photoshop and its features. The digital collage was a bit of a challenge when first writing about myself and beliefs because I wasn't used to talking to people about my past and why I am the way I am. I definitely got out of my comfort zone when writing for this art project. Collecting pictures for my artwork was pretty fun and putting them together on Photoshop was even funner, learning new techniques and learning a new program was a great experience. Honestly I did have some struggles using the program like understanding the layers and understanding that you first have to edit them one by one, but other then that it was pretty simple.
Connecting to the ACT:
1.Rene and his art work really had a great affect on me, his art work really helped me figure out how i wanted to demonstrate the meaning of my piece.
2.The overall thing that Rene does is repetition, he recreates his art work multiple times and in multiple ways.
3.Something that I realized was that artist are criticized a lot, there hasn't been a artist that I have read about that hasn't been criticized. The funny thing is that Rene and other artist get criticized for little things, Rene was criticized for his used of repetition and was said that, that was a cause of trauma
4.The central Idea and/or theme was bullying and the use of repetition
5.The conclusion that came to mind was that most of the artist that are well known now and people love are the artists that are criticized the most.
2.The overall thing that Rene does is repetition, he recreates his art work multiple times and in multiple ways.
3.Something that I realized was that artist are criticized a lot, there hasn't been a artist that I have read about that hasn't been criticized. The funny thing is that Rene and other artist get criticized for little things, Rene was criticized for his used of repetition and was said that, that was a cause of trauma
4.The central Idea and/or theme was bullying and the use of repetition
5.The conclusion that came to mind was that most of the artist that are well known now and people love are the artists that are criticized the most.