Let me first start by saying that this year has been extremely challenging, not just due to school, but also due to what’s going on in my personal life. I’m witnessing an ugly divorce between my parents, and I find myself the sole provider of my household and the only caretaker my mother has. Nonetheless, I’m doing well in my studies, and I haven’t given up, not even when things were so trying I felt like there was nothing else I could do but simply quit school and work full time. I know that times are rough, but I also know that my mother has been sacrificing her entire life so I could get here today. I’m doing my absolute best, and I’m doing everything I can to ensure my future, as well as hers.

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I know that was kind of intense for anyone to see in a simply self-evaluation, but I believe that my own motivations are a huge reflection on my work ethic and the amount of effort I put into things. I recently did a whole speech for my speech class that had to do with the definition of being a hardworking person, and maybe I should share those qualities with you, albeit briefly. The three characteristics I narrowed down were (1) strong personal drive, (2) meaningful motivations, and (3) a mindset that promotes teamwork and cooperation. I believe I am a hardworking person because I have these qualities in both intrinsic and extrinsic manifestations. I believe these relate strongly to the rubric for this project, and forgive me if I’m becoming long-winded or this seems irrelevant, but I was also asked to include any additional criteria, and I do believe this is justified in its own right.

I suppose if we proceed in the same topical fashion as the criteria, the first discussion should be about practice time and expert hours. The three categories listed are Consistent, Uneven, and Sporadic. Consistent would imply a regular schedule, such as how one may practice the piano twice a week or every weekend. Uneven would suggest doing the same action, but maybe you practice more some weeks, or less on others. Sporadic would most likely be the unorganized and completely random dispersing of practice across weeks of working, which probably would result in very poor craftsmanship. I believe my practice was pretty consistent, especially since I work at campus ministry building all sorts of shapes for posters and graphic elements, which I definitely applied to my project. I also worked on my symbols the day of class and the day after, usually, as it was the best way to meet my deadlines in alignment with assignments from other classes. However, I also feel I require less practice than most, as I’m already fairly familiar with the techniques and elements of Illustrator and shape-building through my two years of Graphic Design and yearbook editing in high school. I believe if I ever had an advantage in these classes, it’d be all the time I spent practicing and learning during those two years. I learned how to take good photos and studied photojournalism, and I managed to build experience with CS6 and even working with clients within my school; all the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had in my life. That being said, I’ve had plenty of practice so far, and this is only helping me refine those skills and really try to push myself. In truth, I’ve been trying to push myself more and more; really trying to see what I’m capable of when my inhibitions are erased and I am in full control of my work. Honestly, I’ve been impressed with the results, and my professors and peers alike seem to agree with that, I just want to see how far that momentum can reach.

This brings me to the subject of the sophistication of my work. For the sake of clarity, we’ll define sophistication as meaningful complexity. I believe the three categories for this section are also quite straightforward. High sophistication implies a level of discernment in the work that not only meets criteria, but resonates with a theme or some other element that makes the choices relevant and meaningful. Medium sophistication is similar to high, but only scrapes the surface, showing you are aware of your decisions, but perhaps not fully conscious of their implications. Low is the absence of any of the criteria in high or medium, and is simply the lack of any thought whatsoever. I believe I put a lot of thought into my symbols, and it was really difficult for me to come up with the more abstract ideas, as well. I wanted everything to still relate to the overall theme, and I found it really challenging to embody my own persona in these symbols while still maintaining a certain level of mystery and  in the overall shape of the abstract ones. I think for this reason, I really but a lot of thought into everything, and that resulted in a high sophistication of my work. I tried to allow myself to work with the criteria, rather than be constrained by it. I think that my symbols ended up having depth, complexity, simplicity, and were objective or nonobjective, when need be. I included varied fills and line weights, and I made sure every mark was intentional and ultimately meaningful to the work. Overall, my work was to par with the criteria, I believe, even if it needed tweaking before it came time to finalize.

Feedback was incredibly important to me, especially since I’ve never been given a project like this before (specifically making abstract symbols). In terms of these categories, Meaningful use of feedback would imply a nearly complete overhaul of the work, or at least faithful application of feedback to the extent that the work is stronger than it was before, no matter how minor the changes. Useful implies changes at the surface level, but changes that are made for the sake of changing, not so much to improve integrity. Trivial, similarly to useful, would imply the use of feedback at its most basic level, or the lack thereof any change whatsoever due to feedback. I feel that I personally took all feedback to heart, either scraping entire ideas, reworking shapes, or pushing my mentality in alignment with the feedback I received. I also constantly asked for opinions and thoughts from my peers, even if I wasn’t required to do so. I’ve always had confidence in my work, but I also wanted to make sure that my friends saw what I could see, or couldn’t see, depending on the objectivity or abstract nature of the symbol.

This assignment was a rather big challenge for me, personally. I feel like it was worthy of taking up nearly half of the semester, as it was an introduction into our own manifestations of what we deem important and what we regard as significant, on an intrinsic level, when analyzing our own work and picking our own themes. The categories of intense, medium, and mild, in any sort of arrangement, are subjective. Some tasks are more difficult for others, and with that being said, I believe I did challenge myself considerably, and put myself outside of my comfort zone in whatever way I could. Not only was the actual creation of the symbols difficult, but the application of the vinyl to the wall was EXTREMELY difficult. I persevered, though, and found myself adjusting individual letters with a tack for the majority of the night.

I think in terms of “other expert experiences” I’ve had a lot to keep myself busy. I’ve been building shapes outside of class time for the assignments, as well as working on creating symbols and design elements for my posters in Campus Ministry, so I’ve had plenty of time to just play with shapes and form. In terms of the categories, I feel like I’ve done “lots of extra stuff”, as I’m constantly working on art outside of class, even if some of it’s for another class. I’m an incredibly busy person, and I don’t think that “just the class assignments” meets that criteria, nor does “other ‘stuff'”, as I have not done the bare minimum and I have not been completely idle.

(some of the things I’ve done outside of class for work and other classes)

OKAY SO, here are the paragraphs I’m most excited about…

In terms of EMOTIONAL/SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT, oh boy, have I had a surge of both. This entire project has sparked one of the greatest events in my school career so far, as the amount of stress and difficulty in these art classes has sparked me and some of my peers to form a support group. Not only have we all shared ideas and collaborated on symbol concepts (feedback, opinions, technical help, etc.), but we spent the entirety of tonight organizing a time to meet up and cut our vinyl as a team, then problem-solving to figure out what to do when the machine was locked away in the A121 lab, then got the door open, and helped each other to make sure everything came out as best as it could. This has been an amazing experience, and it was so cool to see how we could come together under such pressure, and really shine like the diamonds we all are. So for this section, I believe I have had strong, mature development, rooted in self-awareness and teamwork. I did not have young or adolescent development, however, as I definitely did not have a “out of control” experience, or a “remote controlled” experience, akin to that of your parents ushering you to a christian child mingling session or the act of asking friends for favors but never remembering their names.

The CONTRIBUTION TO CLASS CLIMATE is also an amazing huge part of my experience so far, as through the previously discussed team collaboration, I have gave real, meaningful feedback to my peers, as well as aid in times of need. We’ve all panicked together, but we’ve also all solved problems together, and for that I am truly grateful. I believe I’ve fostered my own little portion of the warm embers that burn in the metaphorical fireplace of friendship, and I do feel that my influence has never been “cold” or “room temp”. I’ve been more outgoing than usual, and I’ve also maintained correspondence with those I am friends with, so I feel that I am in no way being distant or having some kind of island formed around me.

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Ultimately, this experience has been totally transformative. I’ve learned a lot, cried a lot, and have really made myself a home and family within the walls of this campus and the hearts of my friends. Hopefully these developments will continue within class and outside of class, in my personal and my public life.