Student 11

12/14/00

I started on the self-portrait project very early and went through many ideas before deciding on how to make my self-portrait. I thought about getting a green beer bottle because one of my favorite colors is green and because it is transparent like me (I see myself as easy to read by others). I was going to turn the bottle into a person since it is roughly already in the shape of a body. I decided against this idea just because of the fact that it was a beer bottle and do not see drinking as a big part of my life.

I kept brainstorming and came up with the idea of having six different boxes, each painted a different color and each color representing a different aspect of my personality. The red box represents my casual acquaintances; those people whom I do not have any real connection with and only know about me what I want them to know. I chose for this box to be red for several reasons; 1) because I have an aversion to the color red, for some reason I just do not like it, 2) It is at the front end of the rainbow which coincides with my theory about the deepness of relationships in my life, and 3) red is a fiery color and there is only a small portion of my personality that could be considered fiery. For the most part, I am a very calm, relaxed, and laid-back person. I did have to include red, however, because there are some points when I have reached the end of my patience and I explode. These episodes are very sparse though. The "red" relationships are usually very shallow and not very meaningful.

The orange box represents the people in my life that are closer than the red people, but still know very little about me. The color of the orange box has no real significance to me other than that it was the next in line in the rainbow and I have no strong feelings about orange; I think that orange is ok, but it is definitely not my favorite color.

The yellow box is important because this is the threshold of the people that I encounter. These are the relationships that, while they may not last that long, are very intense and from which I have learned a lot. Yellow is also important because I think of myself as a very upbeat, positive person and I view yellow as a very sunny, cheerful color. This is a big part of my personality.

The green box represents the friends that get to peer a bit farther into what makes me tick. It is also significant because of its color. Green is my second favorite color. I think the green box signifies my love for nature.

The blue box represents a time in my life that very few people know about. It is a time that, retrospectively, I am glad that I went through, because it helped me to become who I am and to be at the place emotionally that I am at today. At the time, thoug, it was very difficult for me. There were a few people that were there for me during that time, and they will always be special to me.

The purple box is very special to me. Purple has always been my favorite color. Since purple is at the far end of the spectrum, I thought it was very fitting to represent the most inaccessible part of my personality. Of the thousands of people that I have encountered in my life, I can count the number of "purple people" on one hand. I am happy to say, however, that they are all still in my life. Purple represents the deepest part of my personality and spirit.

I really wanted to illustrate the importance of the different levels of relationships in my life, so I decided to assign everyone in the class a color. I decided that since the red people weren't really that involved in my life that they should only be allowed to look in the red box. The orange people should be allowed to look in both the red and the orange boxes. The yellow people should be able to look in the red, orange, and yellow boxes and so on. The purple people are allowed to look in all the boxes. I have 13 red, 8 orange, 6 yellow, 4 green, 2 blue, and 1 purple paper. Everyone in the class should get a paper and the color of their paper determines which boxes they get to look in.

After I finished with my boxes, I realized that I had to decide what significant things to out in the boxes. I decided to paint an impressionist picture of myself which I was going to cut into 6 puzzle pieces and put one in each box. I finished the painting and decided that I did not want to cut it up into pieces because I liked it too much the way it was. I decided to put some things in the boxes that were significant and had meaning to me and to use the painting just as a separate part of my project.

The painting I did is very significant and symbolic to me and where I am in my life and where I am headed. In order to read the painting, start at the bottom. At he bottom right, the curvy, pastel lines represent my artistic side, The conservative colors mean that I would never do anything too drastic or unexpected. On the bottom left is my temper. The jagged lines of the flames represent the chaos in my life. Even the colors of the temper, the red, orange, and bright yellow suggest the anger in this area of my personality. In the bottom center is the path that my life has taken thus far. The path takes me past the anger on the left which I left behind long ago. It then takes me past the polka dots on the right which represents the turmoil of my early teenage years. To the far left is my passionate side. The romantic colors and curvy lines suggest the passion involved here. As I get further along in my path, the passion and romance increases. It does not increase, however, until after I pass the cross roads, which is where I am at right now. I have passed all of the teen angst and am at the point now that I have some serious decisions to make. As the earth tones of the path suggests, it is not a bad place to be. It is a calm place, but not a permanent one.

As I progress along the path, I discover that it leads to a beautiful, blue sky with a bright, shining sun lighting the way for me. These colors suggest my positive ooutlook of my life and all of the expectations I have and all of my dreams. The clouds, with the spirals around the edges, represent the constant changes in my life. To the top left are some various shades of purple diagonal lines. They represent the action, excitement, drama, and emotion in my life.

The sun represents both my current family, and the family that I hope to have one day. It is a circle, which represents my wholeness and how my life is centered around my family. There are some protrusions from the circle which represent the balance of the relationships in my life and my struggle not to lose myself in others. In the center of the entire painting, is me, as a crossroads in my life. Not only am I literally at a crossroads in the picture, but my body is in the shape of a cross. The spirals that represent my hair are also representative of the emotional growth that I've been through and that I will continue to go through. My eyes are two blue which represent the stable and down-to-earth part of my personality. My mouth is a big red triangle, which represents my sense of communication, my relationships with others and the balance that I have in my life.

I really didn't know I had all of these different aspects to myself before this project. Usually, when I am assigned a project like this, I BS my way through it and not worry about it. This one, however, I actually put a lot of thought and effort into and I am very proud of the final product. I actually enjoyed working in this project and learned a lot about myself, who I am, and where I am headed in life. I also revived my lost love for painting; it has been awhile and I just now realize how much I missed it.

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