'The Reflection of Roles & Self Desire' by Raven D.

                                                   

                                                   

                                          

   For my final project, I decided to make the subject myself; the content is a self-reflection of my current roles in life and personal desires for the future. I chose the medium of photography and collaging because they're my most favorite art mediums to create with. I also used mixed media such as cardstock, magazine cutouts, 3-D stickers, markers, and glitter glue. The concept of collaging made me want to showcase the idea of 'venting' through text and outside influences that represent how I feel about those roles and what I desire. This is in similarity to how society makes an impact through the media and how it's often used as escapism. I’d categorize my piece as a mixed media collage.

   In constructing my project, I brainstormed a self-reflective narrative similar to Carrie Mae Weems’ A Seat At The Kitchen Table series. I was inspired by how she reflected on her self-identity as a woman through various roles (i.e: mother, daughter, wife) and emotions in her kitchen that’s a place of personal significance. Also how she used props to represent those roles (i.e: young girl, mirror, makeup, telephone). My take on the narrative would be the role of a daughter/sister/friend and a student because those are the current roles in my life. In reflecting on these roles, I would collage text or images that represent how I feel I’m perceived in those roles and what they are. In addition to the roles, there’s a reflection of what I want most out of life as of now. I took three different photos in the same spot of my bedroom, the first one is for my role as a daughter/sister/friend and I used my sisters Raquel and Kyla as props to express my responsibility and willingness to tend to my loved ones. The second one is for my role as a student, I have some textbooks pictured and posed looking at my laptop as if I were doing an assignment. Lastly, for my desired goals I have a picture of myself looking at a small notebook as if I’m pondering what to write about. The small notebook is my ‘plot book’ where I jot down any creative ideas or personal goals I have for the future. I decided on placing the photos on a poster board to provide more space to collage and then ordered them from top to bottom (top: roles, bottom: desires). After that, I made the outline of the background for each photo out of decorative cardstock with an Exacto knife. Then I started the collaging processes with magazine cutouts I made in advance and outlined some of the cardstock and some of the cutouts with glitter glue to emphasize certain elements. Lastly, I made colored the pictures and made some designs with markers to border them.

  The artists that inspired my project were Carrie Mae Weems and Mickalene Thomas. Aside from being inspired by Weems’ work, Mickalene’s style always stood out to me since we first learned about her, the way she makes portrait collages out of mixed media and layers it over photographs. Both women  

  I believe that this self-portrait portrays ideas of self-awareness and progression since I’m mostly reflecting on myself at the beginning of the piece and end on a hopeful note with my aspirations for my idealized self.

  There are some differences between my previous self-portraits and this one. For my first portrait, I made a flag and named it “Tending the Empath”. I used drawing as a medium along with mixed media paper and watercolor markers. The flag represented my empathetic nature and the significance of self-care, this theme is present in my role as a daughter/sister/friend and my desires. In creating the flag, I purposefully chose not to have text in the design since the images gave enough context and unlike this project where the text is used to exaggerate the context. My second portrait was the ‘Detangling Microaggressions' video, it was about addressing microaggressions used against black women and overcoming them. I used video and performance as art mediums and text for the microaggressive phrases. The concept behind the video portrait was a personal statement for a sole experience unlike this project that discusses different experiences, The video portrait heavily relied on performance and this one relies more on text and imagery. For the third portrait ‘Beauty Beyond The Eye of The Beholder’, I did a painting of myself with some collating to commentate on society's beauty standards. I mainly used paint as a medium with a little bit of mixed media such as magazine cutouts and stickers and glitter glue. This final portrait is the closest in similarity to the third one but different because I used more mixed media such as cardstock, actual images of myself instead of a drawing, and heavily used text magazine cutouts along with images. For ‘Beauty Beyond The Eye of The Holder’, I only collaged an accessory (my glasses) to purposefully make a statement. Overall, the theme of reflection from some of my previous portraits remained in my final project. 

In longing to experiment more with collage and text for a self-portrait, I was inspired to make the change in using the medium differently for this project. I personally feel like I pushed myself with the organization of the textual mixed media but could’ve taken it further with elements or use the medium of video instead to go for a less overwhelming approach. From the artists we discussed in class, I learned how to conceptualize more with photography and portraits overall in using elements to elevate it and make statements. 

  

   The media and its images play a huge role in how people view their own identity and self preservations. It's seen as a guide with the standards it enforces. For example, in my project, I express the overwhelming feeling of handling my current roles in life, especially during this pandemic. According to Guy Debord in The Society of The Spectacle, he states "The spectacle was born from the world’s loss of unity, and the immense expansion of the modern spectacle reveals the enormity of this loss. The abstractifying of all individual labor and the general abstractness of what is produced are perfectly reflected in the spectacle, whose manner of being concrete is precisely abstraction. In the spectacle, a part of the world represents itself to the world and is superior to it. The spectacle is simply the common language of this separation. Spectators are linked solely by their one-way relationship to the very center that keeps them isolated from each other. The spectacle thus reunites the separated, but it reunites them only in their separateness". (29)

I would use social media to vent how feel or to distract myself from those feelings. I had goals set for this year that were setback due to COVID and quarantine, initially, I felt really down because there’s the societal expectation that people my age are supposed to have reached certain milestones or achievements. In Bored's The Society of The Spectacle, it's also stated that “When the real world is transformed into mere images, mere images become real beings — figments that provide the direct motivations for a hypnotic behavior.” (18).  Despite how I would use social media as an escape, sometimes I would have to go on a detox from it because too much consumption would overwhelm and feed my negative feelings. I felt like I was behind and not doing enough. Then I had to personally remind myself of how this was a setback for everyone and in general, everyone moves at their own pace.