Throughout the course of this semester I feel as though I have learnt a lot from the work from professionals that I have been exposed to, the work of my peers as well as my own work. This rollercoaster of a semester has taught me to always be patient and to trust that everything will work itself out and to remain focused on the work at hand. I used to often find myself thinking over all the ways that my work could be not accepted, a true pessimist. Since I’ve been here, I have felt a shift in my attitude toward my work, I am a lot more confident with the work I am creating, and I feel as though this is how my art has developed. In my high school art classes I used to always focus on the aesthetic representations of my ideas in my work where I was always looking to create something appeasing to the eye. I used to find meaning and symbols to supplement the aesthetic fronts of my work, which would result in the outcome to have very superficial surface level implications and meanings. Having my work critiqued during the studio sessions of this class has been a treat, though it may be critical I feel as though I am now at a place where I see it only as a learning curve going upward. I look forward to having my work. critiqued as it always opens my work to be nit-picked and analyzed in every detail. I feel as though the work that I have created this semester has been completely different to the work that I would normally create or what I had envisioned my work to be before coming to school here. I feel as though my work Is far from the norms of the art construct. The work that I have created this semester has been personally relevant which is why I feel as though it has been successful. I have gone from creating a piece in response to my time served in the military to baking cookies, to creating an installation out at a park to finally trying to piece together what I had learnt in both studio and seminar by creating an item of clothing for your everyday immigrant.
In response to the questions prompted to us for the project, I do not know if I did have a moment of productive failure, I feel as though with very piece I created there were moments where I felt lowly motivated where I would in turn just try to remain positive and to work even harder to prove to myself that I could conquer whatever I did see at that moment as an obstacle. Over the course of this semester I used a range of materials to create my work that I had never explored before. These include, baking (yes! I had never baked once in my life), creating an item of clothing as well as a site-specific installation. I did enjoy working with these materials as it was something that was completely unfamiliar which made it a challenge as I wouldn’t know what the outcome would be. I think what surprised me the most was when I took on the cookie project and had to tell my parents what I was going to be spending a lot of my time on for those two weeks that we had to construct our final piece. This was definitely a subject matter that I had never thought I would explore especially during my time here at Parsons. My idea of art has changed drastically since I entered the course, as I mentioned earlier in this reflection, I used to think that a work of art could only solely be quantified as art if there was a strong demonstration of artistic skill within the piece i.e. how aesthetic the work is and not solely based on the implications that surrounded the oeuvre. This has transcended to giving my mind more creative freedom to delve into different subjects rather than focusing on how I am going to represent it so that it attracts a wider range of audience that would deem it a competent work of art. I have started to see words as a material due to the fact that words itself is a form of expression that helps when engaging your work with the viewer. All in all, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time during studio and seminar, I have learnt a lot and am grateful to have had the opportunity to be a part of such a talented group of people who I have learnt so much from.
