Altared Book

I have been working on this assignment literally since I was first introduced to it at the beginning of the Spring 2015 semester  Here is the final results of all of my hard work, time, and effort.  The book itself is an overall compilation of class projects; side projects; favorite images, quotes, and ideas; and is hugely a representation of the individual through multiple perspectives.

The Surprise....

I went ahead and actually altered a book.  In the begining of the semester I argued that I did not want to do an altered book on an actual book, because I didn't think it would be wise with books on the verge of becoming obsolete.  I had a conversation with someone that pissed me off bad enough for me to decide to go ahead and destroy a book for the altered book assignment.  The conversation was with a lady, who despite the fact that she can speak English always forces people to speak Spanish to her.  I am the kind of person who loves learning new languages and becoming involved in cultures outside of my own.  The thing that bothered me about this conversation is the fact that the lady tries to force her culture on others without showing any interest in their culture.  The book that I destroyed for his was a translation book from Spanish to English and English to Spanish.  The inside portion of both the front and back covers are decorated with the shredded pages of the translation book.

The Front & Back Covers...

I wanted to keep the back cover simple to represent my more relaxed side and I put a bunch of different things on the front cover to represent the chaos that is life.   The tree on the cover page is a representation of the constant growing and learning we do in our lives.  I made the tree out of a brown paper bag and dried rose petals to give it more of a natural feel.   The rest of the cover page is some of my favorite quotes, words, and images. The back cover only has two quotes, a handmade flower (made out of two different kinds of studs), and a vinyl sticker of a phoenix with my name.  The phoenix is meant to represent the overcoming of different goals and growth. 

16 pages total

Class Take Away 14

I was upset about the various disruptions during the discussions of our fear assignment.  I felt like we did not have the chance to fully convey our fear projects and what they meant for each of us. From my perspective, the point of doing the fear project is to get in touch with or face things we would not normally want to face and hopefully open us up to new ceative avenues.  There seemed to be an almost papable feeling of discomfort through both days of the fear assignments for everybody.  It was almost like the room had become one conscience at some points, as if everyone in the room was in those feelings and moments with the person telling their story.  Kyle did a really great job dedicating himself to his fear project.  It seemed like many of the students really struggled with similar things and they could all in some small way relate to one another.  Overall, I liked doing the assignment, but I did not like certain parts of the discussion portion of the assignment. The themes of everyone's fear seemed to manifest as one thing but turned out to be related to a much deeper bigger fear.  This fear project has in a way opened our eyes to what our fears really are and how we can somewhat deal with these fears when we are confronted by them.

I am excited about how my altared book is turning out.  I almost have the whole thing completed and put together.  I originally used green, pink, and light green on the cover to give the cover a more down to earth feel, and  I used silver spray paint to represent the double meaning of my name on the back cover of the book.  These two covers are also meant to represent the various roles we assume in life.  I have a secret within my altared book, that I think will be interesting. I covered the front part with quotes, a fairy picture, butterfly, paper tree, and green ceramic tiles.  The silver back cover has an orange phoenix, my name, and silver ceramic tiles.  I filled the inside pages with all the different projects I worked on throughout the semester.

World Spinning Out of Control

                                                              LACK OF CONTROL 

Examine what makes YOU fearful. Really give this some critical thought. When you have identified a fear you want to examine, determine which of the categories best fits and discuss why you believe it is one and not the other. 

1. Is the fear you identified for this project a fear, phobia, anxiety, or worry?                                                     I believe lack of control qualifies as both anxiety and worry.  Its more of a worry than an anxiety, but it still qualifies somewhat as both.  Anytime I plan something, but little things start to go wrong I start to worry.  When I was a kid I could never protect myself from those who wanted to hurt me.  I would constantly worry back then of situations that would come about and I could not control them.  I cannot gurantee another persons word, because all I have is their word and that used to be enough.  However, most people I meet today will give their word without followthrough.  I cannot control another person's behavior, so these circumstances make it hard to trust other people as a general whole.    
2. In what ways do you notice fear in your life?                                                                                               i am often confronted with situations that I have very little power to do anything in.  I do a job that requires me to confront people if they are doing bad things, but I am not allowed to carry any weapons for protection if one of those situations goes wrong.  In certain situatons 
3. What does fear keep you from experiencing?                                                                                             I am very guarded when I talk to people, so its hard for people to get to know me.  I rarely go out with people my age, because I don't want to end up in a bad situation I can't handle.
4. What is the use of fear in your life? I don''t view fear as something that should hinder you.  I believe we should get in touch with the things that cause us to feel feelings that resemble fear, anxiety, worry, or phobias.  If we can get in touch with the things that cause these feelings to stir within, we can get in better touch with who we are as people and what we want to define us as individuals. It's hard to explain, but I think its much healthier to let go of things and not worry about the things that are out of our hands.  Not having complete control over the circumstances in my life is scary as hell, but it is not something i want to let control my decisions.  Its hard for me to talk to people and to participate in certain situations, but if I let that stop me I would not have got the chance to see England and meet all the new people I met while I was there.
5. How does fear affect your life, especially in terms of creativity?                                                                   I really try not to let it hold me back, but I would say the biggest way it impacts me creatively is by holding me back from sharing my ideas with others.  I push past my worries to continue trying new things, but sometimes it can be difficult to push past.  Sometimes, I have to shut my mind off and just let go of all the worries.
6. What form does your fear take?                                                                                                               It takes the form of distrust in/towards others, because people tend to be unpredictable in their behavior.  It will sometimes take the form of unnecessary worry in situations where small things seem to make the big picture fall apart.
7. How does making a creative project about your fear impact how you view it?                                                  It reminds me, no matter what I want to keep living life to its fullest and I can't do that if I let worry or fear hold me back.  I want to try new things, travel to new places, and meet new people everyday.  I can't do that if I let my worry/anxiety hold me back.

This Is Bliss...

For this exercise we are supposed to spend our time reserved for class doing something that brings us happiness.  Afterwards we talk about how our fear interacts with our creative space.

Does your creative zone have to be physical?

I don't think my creative zone has to be physical.  I prefer that it is something physical or tangible, but for the most part I usually play out different ideas in my head before I attempt to bring them into a physical realm.

Before going into the bliss assignment I had to come up with some ideas for the upcoming fear assignment. This is what I have come up with so far... I am afraid of falling from tall heights but that does not ever stop me from pursuing the top.  I am afraid of spiders, but I always catch them with my bare hands and release them back outside.  That sums up the small things that I am "afraid" of.  I only write afraid like that, because I feel like if it where something that was truly scary some part of myself would hesitate, but I don't.  The fears I have that make me hesitate are more like anxieties that occur for me when I feel like I am presented with the threat of it.  Failure that feels like a lack of control is something that gives me anxiety.  Sexual abuse or being targeted for some form of sexual abuse is something else that gives me anxiety.  I don't think I can focus on my anxiety over sexual abuse without breaking something inside of myself.  However, I can talk about my anxieties related to failure and a lack of control without totally loosing myself.

Obstacles related to Fear/Anxiety:

1. It is hard to come up with ideas, because there is not much in this world that I am afraid of and I have been taught my whole life to confront the things that make me react with some semblance of fear..

2. The only real things that make me feel something close to fear, is not really "fear" but more of an anxiety.

3. I am having trouble coming up with a school appropriate way to depict my "fear".  

4. I don't have the materials I need for any of the ideas I come up with.

5. I don't experience certain things, because I choose not to experience them for my own personal well being.

       -Even though this keeps me generally safe, it can hold me back in some situations.

What if question:

     1. What if I confront all of the above mentioned fears/anxieties through different forms of art and see which              ones I struggle with most.

             - Example: climbing to the top of a tall building and taking pictures of the Indianapolis                                          skyline or sculpting a spider.

     2. What if I use stuff from around my house to supplement the missing supplies I would need?

             - Example: nail polish instead of paint

     3.What if I open myself to new possibilities? 

After Thoughts-

The more I thought about the fear assignment during the bliss exercise, I began to realize how much anxiety I associated with lack of control in certain situations.  In every bad situation I have ever been in the thing I always struggled with most was the lack of control I felt in those situations.  Not even just lack of control, but like that lack of control was equivalent to weakness or being weak.     

Class Take Away 11

Ironically, the assignment for next week is to not come to class and spend that three hour block doing whatever it is that makes us happy.  I only say it is ironic, because I somewhat followed my bliss for the class prior to this one and ended up creating a mushroom house in Minecraft.  For this out of class assignment  I am going to have to come up with a new idea, but this time I think I want to take it outdoors.   During this time of class outside of class, we are supposed to be thinking about our fear project.  The fear project will be tough for me too.  I have to make something tangible to represent a fear that I have.  This is tough, because I was raised to believe that all fears should be faced head on  and I believe that when we worry about things we just end up generating unnecessary fear within ourselves about things that are usually not within our control.  I am afraid of things, but I don't let myself be ruled by these fears.  I get anxiety with heights, but I would still climb the highest mountain or the tallest tower just to see what is at the top.  I worry about the future, but I live in the now.  The only part of myself that even hesitates in the face of fear is a part of myself, that I am not sure I want or am ready to confront.  With that being said, I will have to seriously consider how I can approach this project without breaking myself.  This fear is one that I try not to confront very often. I have some ideas in mind on ways to make the fear tangible and so far I have been successful in facing my fears.  I think the best thing for facing any fear is to just own that fear and take control of it, instead of becoming consumed by it and letting it control your life.

Class Take Away 10

I had a really bad day on this particular class day.  I didn't make it to class and I almost didn't even get my most recent projects turned in on time.  My car seems to want to have major malfunctions every couple of weeks here lately.  I work full-time and go to school full-time.  I am doing projects at work and at school.  All projects have some sort of deadline attached to them.  I have definitely hit burn out mode.  My car decided to break down again as I was headed to the Seeing Sideways class on Monday.  With no ride to class I took the time to go out and just look at nature, which ironically helped give me some new character ideas.  I really just wanted my brain to focus on anything other than current projects or new project ideas.  It occurred to me that I really just needed to take a little break for myself, but I know that at the end of the day I love creating new projects and ideas.  I made a mushroom, lapis azuli, and glow stone house with lava water fountains to release some of my built up creative energy.  The glow stone was not easy to attainI did not want to focus on a school or work project, so I just did a random project in Minecraft.

Double Take: Media-Go-Round

The idea here is to take a personal creation from a non-digital plarform, editing it on a digital platform, printining it out, and editing the creation again on a non-digital platform.

For this I did a sketch/coloring of a dragon...

and a spin-wheel painting with neon glow paint.

I took photos of the two images and uploaded them into Photoshop.  In Photoshop, I primarily used filters to edit these images, to see how it would change the backgrounds of the images themselves. 

 For the dragon, I used glowing edges, bas relief, and plastic wrap filters.

For the other crazy guitar looking one I used the accented edges, graphic pen, and glowing edges filter.  I transformed it a little to the right to make the middle line look more symmetrical. 

I printed the images once I was done editing them in Photoshop.  The image that looked almost like a guitar, I actually did turn into a little guitar with markers and colored pens.  For the dragon, I added a new color scheme to go with the leathery look of the Photoshop image.