I took an art class my second semester of Hunter which was basically the equivalent of an art foundation course. I wasn't originally too excited about this, but it was a necessary evil needed in order to take the more advanced art courses. Anyways, we did end up doing some projects I thought were really interesting, and out of it came probably the only piece I've ever made that had some tangible meaning and explanation to it. Unfortunately, this is the one piece that I was never able to talk about because we ran out of time during critiques, and nobody else ever asked me about it. I was pretty bummed out at the time because of all the thought and detail I had put into it. I made this back in April and kind of forgot about it until I was going through art pieces for my major transfer application.
The piece is 18x24 inches, and it's a collage using photographs, magazines, prints, and a drawing. For this project, my professor wanted us to pose a question that we would answer through the piece. My question was, how will you be remembered?
I knew I wanted to include pieces of myself in this collage, pictures of my friends and pictures relating to my interests. To even further "add myself" to the piece, I went back to try and find old art I had made. There are a lot of pieces so I will try to break everything down without rambling too much.
Creative Interests
As I stated, the main driving point behind the final piece was my desire to add parts of myself. When thinking about how I will be remembered, I thought about what I'd most like to leave behind: my art. The most obvious part to this is the fact that this collage is an art piece that I made. The guitar is a drawing I did last year, added to represent my love of music, further emphasized by the picture of Angelina and Kurt Cobain. Talia is at the top holding a camera to represent an interest in filmmaking, and she's placed in front of bookshelves at the Strand to represent a love for writing, and the fact that books and words will last far longer than we ever will.
Legacy
Going back down over to the picture of Kurt Cobain, right next to him you can see a group of skeletons laying in dirt. Everyone knows Kurt Cobain as that guy from Nirvana, maybe you think of him as the one who changed rock as we know it, but still many other people can't think about him without also thinking about the fact that he killed himself. Despite all the work he did, this one moment in his life will forever be remembered with him and his legacy. Someone else with a similar story line, I featured one of Van Gogh's portraits in the upper left corner as well. Another artist who passed before his time, never knowing the impact he would have on the world.
Self-Identity
Moving above and towards the middle, there are 4 faces placed next to each other. These are from a self-portrait rubber stamp I made last summer, which I printed onto Bristol paper with acrylic paint. I added color to 3 of them to represent how everyone has versions of themselves, and we will all be remembered differently based on different people's perspectives. The one without color would be our "true" selves, with nothing added to appeal to or fit in with other people.
Relationships
Kind of relating back to the perception of others, our relationships have a big effect on who we are. I think everyone takes pieces of themselves from the ones they admire the most, the way they talk and the vocabulary they use, their humor, the music they listen to, the shows and movies they watch, the clothes they wear, the foods they eat. One of the most important relationships in someone's life is their mother, which I included over on the left side. Your relationships with the people around you can also be a big part of how you're remembered, you affect people just as much as they affect you. The phrase "it takes a community" sort of speaks to that, how communities are made up of tons of different people who coexist while at the same time having their own entirely separate lives and goals.
Culture
Race & culture also play a big part in a person, and influences the languages they speak, the food they eat, what you believe, or even something small like what cleaning supplies you use. I included this aspect with prints of Japanese art as well as photos that include Japanese writing.
Time
This was a detail I didn't think of myself while creating this piece, but during the critique one of my classmates brought it up. Theres an image at the very top right in the middle that has a timestamp which my classmate thought had something to do with time passing, which I hadn't thought about at all when I included the image, but it ended up working in my favor. Time goes by and you grow and change and your experiences shape who you are.
Not going to lie, it took me about a month to finish writing this, there's so much detail I was getting overwhelmed with trying to coherently tie it all together without repeating myself or leaving anything out. Haven't even gone back to reread what I already had because I don't feel like it.
Anyways. Hopefully I got my message across.