This! Project! Stressed! Me! Out!
I was so prepared to sit down and write this beautiful piece of prose all about myself because “I know myself so well and all I do is psychoanalyze myself so it will be easy.” That is the opposite of what this experience was. The plan to just sit down and bust out a working manifesto super quickly immediately got deleted after like three sentences because it was TERRIBLE. I proceeded to just make a list of what I’ve believed to be true consistently. I wrote down the things that have remained true since I was younger, that were true before certain Things happened, that I still felt were true during the course of everything being at the peak of their terrible even when it was hard to believe them, and I still believe them to be true now that Things are almost in the “After.” Situations haven’t gone away and things aren’t fixed, but they’ve shifted enough to where I can now begin to try to reflect back on them because my perspective has become so different and my circumstances have changed so drastically that I’m now emotionally and psychologically in a place where these things can finally support much more objective and thoughtful reflection to reveal that do, in fact, still maintain these core belief systems.
Contained in that list was a lot of repetition of the same core beliefs, and after acknowledging that, I was able to articulate what those beliefs actually are, as opposed to simply listing manifestations of them. The “So what?” comment I received as feedback on that list was by far the most beneficial and clarifying bit of feedback for me.
I got stuck when trying to figure out what visual elements I should put on a shirt and what tokens I should make to try to articulate all that I said in my manifesto. I felt like everything I wrote was super important – which was validation that I wrote what I truly believed, without including anything extraneous – but that made it difficult to depict it visually without overcomplicating a design. I decided on the inclusion of two skeletons who are connected at their feet and hands, because considering all the sentiments in my manifesto about listening to others and being kind and helpful and receptive and accepting, I felt like that could all be summarized by the idea that we are all, at our core, the same, and how consequently, that human similarity connects us and should therefore motivate us all to treat others well.
Curiosity and the importance of bravery to me were also the two core beliefs that I felt had to be represented on the shirt in order for it to truly represent my manifesto, and I felt they were independent of the symbolism existent in the skeletons, so I embroidered “Be curious” and “Be brave” above and below them on the shirt.
I wanted to draw something by hand either directly onto the shirt or onto a transparency to then screenprint onto the shirt, but considering the stress placed on material exploration, I decided I wasn’t going to let myself do the thing I knew I could execute super well. Instead, I decided to experiment with linocuts for the first time, as well as continue my exploration into embroidery from my last project, carving the little skeleton friends into a linoleum block then using it to stamp screenprinting ink onto the shirt and embroidering into the shirt once the ink had dried.
I also used a lino block to create the design of the cards I made as my tokens, instead of making super pretty cards that I know I’m great at making because I make them all the time with watercolor and ink. I don’t know that I love the design of them to be honest, but I definitely learned how I could use linocuts to create design elements that I do like in ways I learned how to control during this project for the future.
It was interesting to read how many times people used the word “care” in my feedback in relation to the handmade/handwritten cards I made as my tokens and the slow, handmade process of embroidery. It was a connection that I sort of generally made when conceptualizing these choices, but it wasn’t a connection I ever really articulated to myself – it just kind of felt right and made sense. So it was really interesting to have other people pick up on that and articulate that for me. I also loved that someone said my shirt was so me, because I don’t know anyone in this class very well but my close friends said the same thing when I sent them a photo of it, so to know that I somehow communicate who I am to people in a way that’s clearly representative of me is something I didn’t know was a thing and is something I’m always worried about.
Here are the lino blocks I carved into:
Not pictured: the war wounds I acquired whilst experimenting with linocuts because I’m totally an adult who should be allowed to play with carving tools.
