My partner for this project was Liz, whom I had already known but got to know better through the past few weeks. We went to a Thai restaurant for our “friend date” because we both love Thai food, and there I learned that she had been home schooled since eighth grade because she was focusing on figure skating, which was her dream at the time. I was very shocked to hear this because to me, figure skating is something I had always associated with people that are more “feminine” or “delicate”, like a ballerina (maybe this is because I don’t know much about figure skating or ballet; but I simply never would have imagined Liz as a figure skater- twirling around on ice in an Ice Princess-like dress). The aesthetics of this portrait I derived from her fashion style- Liz dresses in mainly black and always wears red headphones around her neck. Last week, I spent a lot of time with her at the museum, and the checkered pants she wore that day really stood out to me, so I decorated the portrait with a checkered pattern to symbolize her fashion taste, which is also the “façade”, since I had associated her comfy and low-maintenance clothing (large hoodies, baggy pants) with her calm, laid-back personality. In the center, behind the black lines that are part of the façade, hangs a dress, lipstick (in the past few weeks I had also learned that she is interested in makeup and even let me do her face one time, much to my surprise), and ice skates. The theme of the portrait is the transition from childhood to adulthood, from high school to college- at the end, she chose fashion, which is why she is at Parsons, though she will always have that history of figure skating.
For my portrait, I tried to represent my own transition from childhood to adulthood. As I was growing up in my teen years, more and more people were telling me that I was starting to look like my mother when she was younger, and the more I heard that, the more I subconsciously started acting like her; for example, she is quite hotheaded and stubborn, and I started taking after that even more so than I already was. However, this change was just a façade because I was only doing these things because other people were telling me I was like her. On the inside, I can’t quite say that I am mature enough to be an “adult” like my mother is, so the chaotic mess of colors inside the box covered with my mother’s old images represent that precisely. I have yet to figure out what I want to do with myself and my life- I simply have gotten used to acting a certain way because it makes me feel “grown up”.
