A reflection and overview of my semester
I produced the most work for art. Art has always been very distracting to me, this can be negative and positive. I used art as an alternative to the more mentally demanding work that I had which resulted in me not improving my time management or perseverance. Coming into this semester I was planning to do acrylic painting and drawing with oil pastels. I have done one painting which is definitely disappointing for me because I was looking forward to creating another painting but there is not enough time left in the year. This year I had a lot of fun learning about crude oil its properties, I had a chance to do a hands-on crude oil project in which I created a substance that resembles crude oil. Through this project I produced a photograph and a video, both of which I did not expect to do coming into Pilot. Sadly I am not Piloting art next year because I do not have enough time but if I Pilot art my senior year then I need to be thinking about connecting much sooner in my project work than I did this year. I have just recently started thinking about connecting and I think I would be making better connections if I had been thinking about connecting during the time I was doing the bulk of my research. I have done two oil pastel drawings this year, one of which is not yet complete. The work that I spend more time on and take weeks, even months to do has been my best work, my sweat lodge drawing is an example of this. With my past projects like my painting and my destruction story drawing, I was rushing a bit in order to get them done for certain occasions. I need to remember with all of my project work that quality comes before quantity.
Water v. Oil Project
Spring 2018
The Water v. Oil project aims to educate the public on the dangers of the harvesting and transportation of crude oil. In this project I focus on how oil pipelines affect surrounding communities water sources, particularly Native American.
Progression, documentation
Documenting the progression of my project work has been a big part of my growth this past semester.
Connecting
This semester I focused a lot on emotion and the expression of pain and anger. After seeing the progression of emotion in the Water V. Crude Oil video, I connected it to the release of negative things and energy through sweat lodge ceremonies. The purpose of a sweat lodge ceremony is to rid the body of something negative, this can be a sickness or a bad omen such as killing an animal while hunting. During a sweat lodge ceremony, there is a release of negativity, much like the release of negativity through expressing emotion.