Student 24

(question 5) In your own words, describe your self-portrait and the style of art it represents. Please try to explain your use of line, shape, color and texture and what is conveys to you.

The circle in the center represents my wholeness as being a wellrounded individual and in the spiritual sense. The cross in the circle represent relationships and crossroads and decisions that I have had to face and will continue to face. I used the color blue to signify how I think things through and am very practical and down to earth in comming to decisions and dealing with relationships. The spiral represents growth and change and how I always want to be growing in all that I do. The red represents my passion for growth. The 5 triangles the theme of self descovery and revolation around my life that makes me complete. My goals, dreams, ideas, strengths and gifts. The mirrors are how I used to only care on how I was reflected to others but has since been shattered and the real me is comming through, but they are still there and still exist. The square that is used as the base is my foundation and stability. It shows my practicality, integrity and responsibility. Vertical lines- strong and stable Horizontal lines- calm and tender Diagnol lines- active and playful Stcatto lines- energetic and loud wavy lines- feminine and soft

(question 6)Please explain how you used ideas from the resources on the self we studied. Did you consciously use ideas from or react to any of the following resources in your self-portrait: the psychological theories of self? The Rilke discussion of "faces," "hands," or "costumes"? The Asian views of the self? The examples from art of non-representational self-portraits? Please clearly explain what ideas from these sources you integrated into your self-portrait and why.

I used several ideas from the resources that we studied. I used the psychological theories of the self by identifying my identity in order to convey it through my art. I used the idea of preferential shapes to portray myself through different shapes. I used the Yourba color idea to portray my emotions and how I feel about various things. I also used the different ideas of lines to show my personality. I used the asian view of the self to reflect on who I am and so I could show that in my art.

(question 7) In what ways do these different disciplinary resources agree with one another on the question of what is the self?

The self is an idea of the reality which gives any one person individuality. While all of these resources are different, there are a few things held in common by all of them. First of all, they agree that the self is a personal, indiviual, thing held by only the one whose identity it is. No one else can my who I am. Secondly, it is a unique representation of all of what makes up one person. I used these all together to look at different aspects of myself since each one concentrates on different things and has different strengths and weaknesses.

(question 8) In what ways do they conflict with each other on the question of what is the self?

These resourses mostly differ in that they use different means to the same end. They put more stock in certain aspects than the other ones do. For example, the Rilke discussion of "faces," "hands," and "costumes" uses physical aspects as means to self discovery while, the psycological idea of the self uses mental aspects, while the Asian idea uses spiriual and religious aspects.

(question 9) Does your self-portrait try to reconcile these ideas or did you choose a particular postion to convey? Why?

I used my self-portrait to reconcile these ideas based on the fact that I believe they all have valid and necessary ideas which to use to discover yourself. I think it is important to realize the strenths and truths that lie in each way of looking at the self. We see and find ourselves through different windows and each of these represent some, but not all of these windows which we can find ourselves in. Unless we use different windows to discover different ascpects of ourselves, we can never truly find our identity.

(question 11) In our unit on the self, is there a right answer to the question of what the self is? If not, what is your reaction to our inability to provide a clear answer one way or the other on this issue?

There is no one correct answer to the question of what the self is. The reason that we cannot come to one conclusion that covers everything is because everybody has different experiences that warrent different ways of learning about themselves. It is a very personal thing that cannot be black and white or covered by one big blanket statement. All we know is from experience and no one has the same experiences as another, so there can be no way for everybody to find the self or know the self the same.

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