Thesis 2017

Description

For my thesis, it became necessary for me to create work which considers the journey I have taken as a non-traditional student at Maine College of Art, and use it as a way to reflect on the learnings I have acquired as a culmination of my studies. It has been said that writers should write what they know, and this is advice I have taken to heart when creating new works of art. My work has progressed significantly while at MECA, especially thanks to experiences in my sophomore year which centered around critically thinking about my approach to design and art-making. I began to shed a number of bad habits, most of which focused on making something I thought other people would think is cool. I shifted my focus inward, analyzing actions, motives, and eventually emotional baggage. I stopped making work I thought other people would like and started making work about me. This lead to an investigation of how I learn about myself and manage emotional history through my art-making practice. I wanted to investigate how art can be used to investigate oneself?how the different languages (mediums) artists use translate their ideas through a particular medium.? This line of thought has led me to create a book which investigates what artists learn about themselves from their art-making practices and processes?how visualizing and re-contextualizing internal processes and moments of self-discovery aids in resolving internal conflict and emotional baggage. I was able to realize this investigation through the juxtaposition of image and text in a book I designed for my thesis titled, In Their Own Words. Using my skills as a designer, photographer, and expert listener with a passion for learning about others through their journeys, this book is filled with photographs and interviews I have conducted with artists at MECA when I asked them about the space they create work in, what inspires them, what languages (mediums) they choose to speak in, and what they have been able to learn about themselves on their paths to self-discovery.

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