My intention for this project was to portray how I believed others were viewing me as I was going through my weight loss transformation. I wanted to show myself in one of my most vulnerable states, as I am looking in the mirror analyzing my body. Also, show how I believed I was under this type of microscope from those around me.
I began this project with writing a memoir. I wrote about how I began to lose weight due to being afraid of how I thought I was perceived as fat. My motives for losing weight weren’t what they should’ve been. I was focused more on being skinny than on being healthy and I had to change that because I was just making myself unhealthy with my weight loss tactics. I eventually saw the problem at hand and corrected it. This piece touches upon those feelings of guilt and self deprecation I had in my process, before I realized what I should be doing it for.
The idea process for the picture didn’t come easy to me. I have never had to depict something so personal to me within my art and I really struggled with portraying it in the correct light, so that the message I had didn’t become misconstrued. I sketched a series of three drawings, with little to no prior drawing experience. That was a challenge within itself. I showed myself in three stages of weight loss, surrounded by what my mentality at the time was. First, I was surrounded by darkness, then a state of confusion, then in a happy place. Looking back on the drawings, I really dislike the concept I had. It can be easily mixed up with the idea that being skinnier made me happier and that is not what I wanted to show at all. So, for the next set of drawings I began from square one.
I asked myself what it was that I REALLY wanted to show. With the end goal of a photograph or series of photos in mind, I started to play around with the idea of pictures in mirrors, because that’s what I had spent minutes at a time looking into, and that’s where I documented my body through process pictures. Originally I wanted to show myself in a series of 4 photos, all in mirrors, with different aspects and different “versions” of me, with and without makeup, in lounge clothes vs dressed up, just as I was and how I showed myself to the world. I drew a grid of 4 photos, all depicting this idea. But, that still wasn’t enough for me, and that wasn’t all I wanted to show.
I kept the idea of mirrors but moved back to thinking about how I was so focused on what others thought of me. I wanted to show that to the best of my ability. I played around in photoshop with a reflected image of a mirror. I then put a photo of myself on one side and two of my peers on the other side, both looking at each other. This shows how I was being viewed by others, but simultaneously viewing myself. I decided to make the photo in black and white to signify how the environment around me felt at the time that I was unhealthy and unhappy, colorless. And this, came together as the idea for my final photo. 
I am very proud of the result of this project. I think it’s successful with how I took the idea from my memoir and showed it in a medium other than writing. This was the first time I was able to be personal and vulnerable with my art, so the piece is important to me. Despite all of the challenges I’ve faced within the creation of the final piece, I really believe its a strong piece that gets my message out to the best of my ability.
3 Questions for feedback & critiques:
- Do you think the piece would’ve been stronger if I had shown my prior self, before weight loss?
- Do you think I made the right choice with deciding to put the photo in black & white, would it have changed your view on it if it were in color?
- Should I have shown more people looking at me, to put more emphasis on the point?
