My name is Winnie Zhu, and I’m currently a first-year student at Parsons School of Design, majoring in fashion design.

In my works across my first year courses, I noticed that there are both similarities and differences between them. The themes of “Identities” and “Self-Realization” appeared in both my Integrated Studio 1 course last semester and my Time course this semester. In both classes I created works based on the ideas of realizing and finding my own identity in the midst of a crowd, and apart from other people. Also in both of these classes, I used the same method and technique of photomontages in order to portray the themes of “Identities” and “Self-Realization”. However in Integrated Studio 1, I printed out photographs on paper and hand-stitched them together on another piece of printed paper; whereas for my Time course, I had scanned found images and and also images in which I have taken, and put them together digitally in Photoshop.
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I have utilized the skills in which I have already learnt in my Drawing & Imaging course in my spring elective course-Drawing the Figure. For example, as I have already had experiences with drawing people and figures using different media such as charcoal and acrylic, it was easier for me to apply what I have already learnt in my works and demonstrate my skills further.

I see a clear connection between my academic studies and studio making, especially for Integrated Studio and Integrated Seminar. In Integrated Studio and Seminar 1, I chose the theme “Fake”, where we study articles that explore the theme in depth and also wrote our own essays in response to the articles. In Integrated Studio 1’s final project we were asked to produce a project revolving around the subject matter of “Fake”. As in seminar class we have studied the subject in depth and gotten more ideas about the subject, it was easier for us to apply our ideas and produce pieces of works in our studio class.

I was excited when we could put our personal experiences or something related to ourselves in my projects and papers. For example when I was asked to draw a self-portrait in my Drawing & Imaging course, and a life-sized self-portrait in my Drawing the Figure course, I was quite excited as I’ve never done something as challenging before. Even though the process of making these works were undoubtedly very tiring and required much handwork, I did enjoy the process of creating the works and I was content that I managed to finish them off and hand them in on time.

I think further research really helped me when before a project is being started, as you can only know what you want to create by doing in depth research beforehand and getting familiar with the subject matter itself. I also think that it’s helpful to write about the making process, to record the process of making the works is important for others to see where you’ve came from and how you’ve progressed from initial ideas all the way to the final product. It is also good to write a reflection or analysis after a project is done, to evaluate what you’ve done right and wrong, in order to improve your skills and avoid making mistakes in the future.

Two highlights from my first year to me would probably be both from my Integrated Studio 1 course in the fall semester. The first project is called the “Wearable Design Object”, where I had to design a wearble design object for a fictional character given to me which was writtened by a classmate.

This is the revised persona poem that has been given to me, in which the character Olivia Drake’s characteristics and personalities are being portrayed.

These are pages from my visual journal that show my initial sketches and how my ideas of this project has changed and developed. My original idea was to make a pair of glasses or sunglasses, then I wanted to make an object which combines the individual objects of sunglasses, a hat, and headphones. At last, my idea transformed into making a two-sided mirror for the character Olivia Drake, which demonstrates the two sides of her personalities and reveal both her inner and outer traits.

This is the final outcome of my project, where I made a two-sided mirror using a pre-existed mirror however adding my own elements. It is mixed media which includes the usages of acrylic, beads, and glue.

For this project, I thought the most difficult part was to come up with an idea so that the object will fit the character that you are designing for. I came up with a few different ideas but I chose to change them as the old ideas were not as innovative and feasible. The most interesting part of this project was the process of making the object, by using glue to attach the back of the mirror onto the front of the mirror, and using glue to stick on embroidery borders for decoration, I found the process very intriguing. The process of making the object was also challenging as I have never worked with glue before thus it was hard to control the amount of glue in which I have applied, and also I had to leave them out to dry. The one thing that surprised me was the fact that after I applied glue onto the mirror, the glue started spreading and made the surrounding areas white, thereby affecting the aesthetics of my two-sided mirror.

The other project examines the representation of different identities related to the portrayal of the multiple sides of self.The concept of this project is to create a collage or a series of collages that represent a fake interpretation of an identity with real images. An artist who has worked with a similar idea would be Annegret Soltal, who is known for making photomontages of her own body and face sewn together with black threads. This project will take on the form of creating a collage made of images of others and myself, by using white threads to sew the images together. This project relates to the idea of “Fake” as the combination of the body parts and the face is a recreation of my identity, however it is not realistically being put together.

Those are the prototypes for my studio project. For my prototypes, I use different photos of myself and printed these photos out in black and white on paper. I chose the photos that are taken specifically of the close up of the face and with parts of the body shown from above the shoulders, and also photographs that seem to express particular mood or emotions: for example smiling for happiness, and frowning for anger.

Then, I ripped out partial facial features on the faces and rearranged them into different places on different parts of the faces. I also tried to play around with moving around the different body parts or parts of the head. I tried using a stapler to bind the ripped paper onto the base, however the stapler can only reach the area of paper that’s near the edge, therefore I decided to use white threads instead-as inspired from the artist Annegret Solta’s use of black threads.

Those are the outcomes of my final project revolving around the theme of “Identities”. My final project has changed a lot compared to my prototype as after asking around others’ opinions, I decided to not only use photographs of myself, but also use photographs of others. Moreover, I printed out photos in both black and white and Procolor. I also decided to do a series of photomontages (3 pieces) as opposed to a single piece but of a larger scale. Lastly, I made the decision to hand sew all the pieces onto the base by using white thread, instead of using a stapler or a combination of both. This way the white thread will showcase unity as the stapler is unable to staple the page in the center.

In the future, I want to pursue more studies that are related to fashion or graphic design, and also learn more skills and techniques that are related to those fields. I think that in my future projects, many of my inspirations and ideas may emerge to be similar to each other, therefore one project may generate another and so on.