Bridge Project 1: “Pillars of Faith”

Introduction: 

This project was meant to illustrate me, my family, and the roles they played in my own character development. I grew up with divorced parents, flew back and forth between homes for years and was raised separately by two brightly contradicting people. I lived with my mother during the week on the North shore of Massachusetts and lived with my father in Pennsylvania every other weekend. My mom is the creative, the “right” side of the brain (hence represented by the right collage). She is a dancer specializing in jazz/modern choreography, studying and working in New York for a brief stint before settling in Massachusetts with her college dance collective “Exit Dance Theater”. I was raised by these people, and found plentiful advice at my fingertips, always. However this was not the only one influence on my life. My father was raised a catholic and although my catholic background may not have followed me to art school in New York, to deny it’s influence on my personal constitution would be wrong. My dad was the more strict, “left brained” (his side of the family is hence imagined by the left collage) of my two parents. He worked hard to instill an appreciation for “commitment, discipline, and new experiences” in my upbringing, I believe these values stuck. These two juxtaposing sides merge, and balance to form my foundation and from this narrative I formed my “Pillars of Faith” diptych.

Initial Brainstorm Sketches:

I tried to hit all the bases with these drawings. If someone 100 years from now were to look at this work they would see playful doodles outlining everything from Schwind family history to the beginnings of my life here in New York. Goofy moments, silly fragments, pieces of memories that I look back on fondly. Beautiful molding that stood out to me on my first day walking the streets as a new “New Yorker”, daring adventures and my mom’s lucky green earrings. I struggled greatly to create something emotionally representative when it had to be abstract. I took time and made a playlist of music from my younger years as a child, music I was “raised” on. When I listened to it I rediscovered melodies that felt like pieces of me, I could imagine no other way to create an “innerscape”. I still don’t think they’re very aesthetically pleasing to look at, but maybe that’s because my insides aren’t either, it felt right to explore invisible parts of myself with that kind of lense.

Process: Concept/Project Development:

To start I went back as far back as I could remember and compiled a list of meaningful symbols to my life, growing up. I took note of instances like my family traditions, Fisher generational “lucky green earrings”, the repetition of fish symbolism on both sides of my family, significant buildings, and people, etc. From there I took these symbols and did my best to compile them into the most significant and insignificant. I then decided to start my painting/cutting/pasting process from that stand point, keeping in mind the significance of certain colors and images.

Composition brainstorm sketches:


This was the initial plan for the first collage. I later realized my collage would communicate the narrative better if I created a sort of frame for the fish, as the focal point, and then built from there. It also aided the piece when it became a diptych.

Detailed photos of the sketches you decided to work with for your collages:


I took a lot of my base sketches and ended up editing them a bit to aid their function in communicating my “familial” narrative, I also ended up using more than one kind of fish in the final pieces to represent different sides of my family despite the fact that I only drew one basic “fish” sketch.

Creating collage papers:


I used green and red in these pieces. I got the basis for the idea from my mom’s “lucky green earrings”. In my pieces the color green represents my mother’s side of the family. The opposite on the color wheel was red, naturally this would represent my father’s side of the family. I wanted to illustrate their stark differences while simultaneously weaving them together, harmonizing them, to create my self portrait. I also used different types of fish to represent this same contrast. My dad’s side being represented by the Striped Bass (my grandfather is a bass fisherman, and his boat is named “The Striper”, also my step mom’s maiden name is Fisher) and my mother’s side being represented by the Herring (my mother’s maiden name is also Fisher, her nickname in high school was “Fish”, her zodiac sign is Pisces, and her side of the family is Swedish. At Fisher family get-togethers “Pickled Herring” is a dish frequently consumed by my Swedish family and the recipe has been passed down for generations.)

In-progress:


I ultimately decided to put one fish on each piece to represent both sides of my family instead of putting two fish on each piece. It clarified the narrative of the works and made for a better piece collectively.

Iterative Process: Collages 1 & 2

To illustrate the contrast between the two pieces I tried to indirectly make them negatives of each other. I mirrored the frame surrounding the focal fishes. I changed the type of fish that bordered each frame, and I also changed the “Pillars of Faith” in each top left corner of the pieces to illustrate the different ways my parents chose to raise me. My dad’s side (red fish) trying to raise me with the catholic faith in mind and my mother’s side trying to embed the ways of her dancer/artistic “faith” in me. I merged the “squiggly” line work of both pieces into each other to show these sides were working together cohesively to make one being.

Final Reflection:

I was first very intimidated by this project. I saw this prompt from an angle that forced my creativity to cover a lot of  family history. Two 8×10″ collages were not enough ground for all of this story to take place upon. I wanted to respect every aspect of myself that deserved its time to shine in the sun, however having finished the piece (successfully in my eyes) I am pleased to have conquered the challenge without having to sacrifice the respect I have for my personal narrative. Both sides of myself are visible and come together to create a harmonious and earthy tone for the diptych.

I was pleased to learn from the critique that my pieces successfully communicated with the audience despite the abstract symbolism. The audience was able to recieve the tone I aimed to portray and understood the “deeply rooted family” aspect of my work.

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