Project Week First 2023

As I finish semester 1 of college, I needed a boost to give me a start into what I wanted to create in the next semester. What I liked about Minerva so far, is that each semester we have a project week where we focus on a specific project that is hosted by the guest teachers from all over the world that we like. This week I had joined a workshop called “Your Voice is Unique”. And I thought it might help me expand my practice in expressing my journey through art. Our guest teacher was Hamilton C Harris who is an artist and producer who has gone through trauma and had come to share how he developed his voice. I found it very interesting. Since it was very based on trauma and racism. I was not seeing where I could fit, however he then mentioned that they are just examples of the core theme which is isolation, excluding, neglectance, and so on. This then gave me flashbacks to when I was bullied, of course it was a while ago but I still remember those feelings of isolation and the amount of anxiety. I have been wanting to create a piece on this but never got around it. I didn’t just want to create an artwork of me showing anxiety, I wanted to show it differently and allow the viewers to feel it. There were various questions and points about how to create art, how to express your voice in art. These include:

• You are the best of who you are. 
• Are there benefits of trauma, if so, where are the found? - This helped me refer to my experience with bullying and how it has the benefit to make me stronger and more empathetic. 
• How does one access trauma as a creative tool?
• What textures/shapes/color/lines (elements of art) relate to the feeling? - How to translate what you felt into your art?
• Let your feelings flow into your art, don't think about it. 
• 3 important words that guide the art making practice 
• Assimilate - Take in and understand fully about information, ideas, art from other artists 
• Imitate - Take on or follow as a model, copy, make art and experiment through the artist's eyes. Put myself in it, how I feel, imitate then innovate
• Innovate - Make changes in something you learned - introducing new methods, ideas, products, make it unique
• How did I feel? How do I react? Where does it come from? 
• How does the influences i have gained influence the creative process and output?
• How did I overcome adversities? 
• Art is about deconstructing and reconstructing - put stuff down (ideas, feelings) and take it away (what did I learn, new perspectives, reflection)
• "I'm with you, but history walks with me" - I am in the present but history has framed me who I am. 
• "Didn't have the tools to navigate the scene" "Use whatcha got"
• Life has unexpected realities

These have given me new perspectives in how to study art and how to express your ideas to the fullest.