For both Studio and Seminar, this semester was heavily student-driven. Both courses revolved around a research assignment, for which each student chose their own topic, then proceeded to conduct research to ultimately write an essay in Seminar and around which to construct a project in Studio.
My project began with the question, “Why Does Everybody Want Me to Draw Them?” which evolved into an exploration into the function of portraiture. It ultimately became an argument of the words “likeness” and “identity” in the specific context of portraiture, arguing that all definitions which define a portrait as a depiction of likeness should replace the word “likeness” with the word “identity,” as likeness is merely a communication tool which can be utilized to more effectively communicate a person’s identity, which is the ultimate purpose of portraiture. From there, the concept of identity was explored, analyzing not only what identity is, but how many identities a person possesses, and who has the ultimate authority to determine the nuances of a person’s identity. This is a similar exploration to what drove my Studio project, which consisted of a process of drawing various people in various ways and exploring how tools like color and mark-making could communicate different things about a person’s identity.
The sources I referenced were found by reading other research that had been done on portraiture and searching through the sources those papers had cited, then continuing this same process until I had acquired a sufficient number of merited sources that could both be referenced in quotations in the essay, as well as simply inform the opinions and conclusions I ultimately came to which drove the essay. The most difficult part of the process I found to be deciding which sources would be most effective to specifically reference through quotations in the essay, as well as how to keep the essay grounded in current events to ensure it remains relevant to the reader. Going forward, I look forward to more opportunities to explore the relationship between my own experiences, current events, and historical research through writing.
When I first learned this class had an autobiographical theme running through it and that this paper would be reflective of that theme, to be completely honest, I was pretty prepared to hate it. I’ve never liked writing about myself, and I’ve also never had a particular fondness for writing narratives, as much as I love reading them, so approaching this essay with an understanding that it would contain these elements felt not only daunting but uncomfortable. What started out as something I felt kind of afraid of turned into a learning opportunity that I feel had a significant impact on my writing that not only improved my writing over the course of the semester, but that will continue to develop as I move forward after this class. This paper was the first time I was encouraged to speak with my own voice – to find the bits that are unique and reflective of me and cultivate them, allowing myself and my own experiences to narrate this piece of writing instead of editing all of that down so much to where all that’s left is just an essay that sounds like it was written by some sort of generic research robot. I learned how to incorporate personal perspective into writing, as opposed to their presence being found only in the opinions that drive a piece of writing, and this semester was finally when I was able to start abandoning the instruction that was drilled into my head since I was a kid in English classes that insisted “ESSAYS MUST BE WRITTEN WITHOUT BIAS, AND THEY MUST NOT CONTAIN THE PRONOUN, ‘I’.” I learned that individuality in writing is not only okay but necessary, and I’m grateful to have had an instructor that encouraged us to find a void, ask questions, then use our own unique voices to fill the silence.
Also, after doing this project, I was totally asked by people in this class for me to draw them, so long story short, I’m currently in the process of drawing Carolina.
