The Fun Life of The Struggle

For my final project, I decided to incorporate stuff about my past, present, and future. The past (right side of portrait) shows how I went through forms of patriarchy by being called to "man up" by many male figures growing up. I also didnt fit societies norms for the ideal male look, I was looked down upon by many females in just walking the hallways of my high school. The broken heart represents rejection, in all the forms I experienced it in highschool such as relationships, friendships, and family. My future career aspects at the time were unknown to me, I faced much pressure from succeeding in life and just striving to graduate highschool. In the middle represents the present and what I'm going through. The top has a sign that says "Wealth" and that is to show that I am taking control of my money to have a more financially stable future. The middle shows a human body to represent my realization that I am human, I make mistakes just as anyone else and that no one is perfect. The bottom of it shows a cat with the words around it saying "Stop being a pussy", this is a dark side of the portrait and the meaning behind it is that I cant seem to throw away that saying that has brought me much pain in the past because I still hear it all the time from my family. The very bottom shows four aspects that I am currently progressing in to better my life. The left side of the portrait represents the future and what I hope to see in it. In the top left is a heart made from money, I hope to see a financially stable future so I can feel more secure about my life. Below it is a womans silhouette to represent that I want feminism to progress in the future. Below that is a time management picture, its pretty much self explanatory, I will improve my time management skills. The last things are the video games are awesome sentence on the side in which shows Ill never leave my one love of games behind, and the people at the bottom represent careers, In which I hope to get my own career in the future.  

Demons

A colorful world full of Demons 

         The subject of my image is myself and the demons that live whiting me that no one sees. Everyone sees me as the happy, playful and smart girl that hast her life together, no one sees the real me. In this self- portrait I tried to show myself putting a gun in my head which is the results of the demons that fill my mind with negative thought that sometimes led me to hard myself.I decide to talk about them because sometimes I just want to give up and sometimes when people see me sad or like i'm about to give up they don't believe me, they think I'm doing it for a show. Because no one knows about my mental illness and not a lot of people know about my past. Doing it was fun because everyone would ask me why do you have a silhouette of a girl pointing a gun to her head, and I would laugh and said it was a project and they would ask me to see it when I was done. Everyone was so curious about it that it made it even funner for me to do. When I came up with the idea of my project the teacher told me to research Louise Bourgeois, an artists that made this big spider that represented her demons, which symbolized her trouble with men and her family. Bourgeois used autobiographical and personal memories as a source of inspiration and I did the same. Se inspired me to talk about my personal issues. This image attracted my friends to learn more about what was about the whole "gun" concept was really deep for everyone. My midterm was more about the female body and the male gaze but now I decided to talk more about myself and the things that no one sees. Seeing the work of different artist and representations of themselves inspired me to talk about the Michelle that only the people closer to me know.

I wrote this to explain my demons and i wanted to share it :)

I decided to put a semicolon in my life and continue my story, a semicolon is a promise to myself that I would never willingly end my sentence, and end my story. A semicolon is a reminder to open up conversations between myself and other humans about mental illness because as difficult as it is, what’s more difficult is feeling stigmatized, or like you failed, or like people are feeling sorry for you. There is no question that the stigma surrounding mental illness inhibits struggling humans from finding the help they need. I find this absolutely heartbreaking because I know I am not alone when I say that depression destroyed my childhood, my relationship with friends, my involvement in school, and much, much more. So if one out of every four people struggle with mental illness, why did I feel like I was the only person who had experienced this before? If 25 of every 100 people I pass on the street have clinical need for psychiatric care, then why did I feel like I had to hide my shaky hands every time I would panic. It would hit me harder than a train or feel like I had to shove every suicidal thought on a shelf behind old dictionaries and behind every classic novels where no one could find them. Nearly 30,0000 people die from suicide every year and that’s more than twice that of HIV and AIDS. But still I am embarrassed to tell you that sometimes I can’t get out of bed in the mornings, that some nights I cry myself to sleep because I don’t want the thoughts of suicide to take over me. Let me make his clear for those who don’t know me well: “I am not who you would expect to be depressed.”

    “I am not who you would expect to be depressed”. You cannot put me in a box decorated with black nail polish and frequent trips to Hot Topic  because you don’t wear depression like a necklace or put anxiety on like a hat. You cannot spot depression because of what you see. I am depression and I am not the silent girl dressed in all black hiding in the back row of your lecture hall. I am depression and I am the perfect picture of a 21 year old sorority girl in NJCU. I am depression and I am oversized sorority t-shirts and jeans that I have to hold with a belt, starved hips that the greek girls envy so much. I am depression behind a stylish hair that cover half of my face most of the times and beautiful makeup that takes me hours to do.

No one ever knew that my illness had crippled me so severely that I spent 20 hours a day wrapped in blankets in my bed, trying desperately to fight away the bitter cold that had taken over my heart. I hid myself in a social life, I call 15 women on my campus by the name of sisters, but sometimes I’m still laying at the bottom of a lake unable to breathe while effortlessly everyone around me grow gills. Because no one tells you what to do when your life becomes a 10-car pile up during rush hour traffic, because no one tells you to tell the very people who framed your life and hung it up on the wall for everyone to admire the girl who has it all together that nothing is right anymore. No one tells you what to do when good days fall so severely that you can’t remember the last time you woke up and didn’t want to die.

Every 16.2 minutes, someone takes their life. In the time you’ve been listening about the crippling disease that made me want to take my own life, someone took theirs… And still, we shame and stereotype and stigmatize the people who need the most help and teach our children that having to ask for help is something we should feel bad about, when in fact sometimes strength is admitting that you don’t have any left.

Oftentimes I feel like depression ruined my life. It took so much that it’s become a desperate desire for something good to come out of this. My hope is that because of my experience, I can be an advocate and a champion for mental health awareness, that I can start a conversation with girls in my colony and students on this campus and hopefully influence someone’s life for the better. I am lucky, yes I am lucky because I live in a beautiful home with a beautiful family. I am lucky because I have a stepmother who raised me as her own daughter and believed me when I said I was depressed and didn’t make it sound like my fault. I am Lucky because I have people that supports me. The problem is that people struggling for worse than me don’t have half the support I do.

For the people who cannot champion for themselves, every day that I say no to the dark thoughts depression tried to tangle my mind with, I am winning a battle that society has not made easy to win. I’ve learned a lot from my struggle with depression. Every day is another day of endless waves of transformation and as much as I wish it didn’t hurt so bad when it hit me, I can’t say that I’d change who I am, the struggle I went through. I decided that my story wasn’t over yet, and let me tell you, you do heal, you do become stronger. I don’t know what it would take to frighten me, but it will have to be something big. I am, in fact a survivor.

Final Project

Herbert Sotamba, No matter what people say, I will always slay, 2017

The subject was to make LGBT communities to be happy with their lifestyle.  Gran Fury talked about HIV/AIDS awareness for others to know about.  I wanted to make a similar post which he made of kissing does not kill.   My goals was to make people know everyone has two different side of them.  Some do one like to show their other side because might care what society got to say.  I want the viewers to see my both side of me because I live my life not caring what people said people I do what I want.  For example, I when to New York and decide to take a picture in one of my sexy costume.  I was scared at first because I have never showed my body in public.  People out they have a better body than me which was all I thought about at first but I wanted to end that for good.  I wanted the viewers to see I am can go out in public without caring. 

The difference from my midterm self-portrait is that I did not show no fear in my final self-portrait.  I did not even think on what people were saying of me because I was just excited to have a positive message in my final self-portrait.  The quote that I made up was “No matter what people say, I will always slay”.  All the negative comment people would say about me made me become stronger.  It was an image to show more of myself rather unlike the midterm.  People would see the both side of me being friendly and enjoying my skin.        

I would categorize my work for freedom into what society does not let me live.  Slay to me means destroying all native energy that is around.  Each day I slay because I know everything about me is beautiful.  I do not have the right image as all man are seen in social media because I am skinny.  I want to show everyone including woman to just do something crazy once in your life and show skin no for someone but for yourself.  I did not care if people were looking at me because of the pimples I have in my chest and back.  I make every scene of my life as a runaway.  I focus to reach to the end were I have accomplish my goal into becoming someone in life without looking side to side because I am slaying.  

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Final

Jon Paszkiewicz, Determination, 2017

Final- Body Acceptance

Alexandra Rosario, Love Who YOU are, 2017     

The topic of my project is LOVING YOUR BODY. I named it loving your body because as previously stated in my midterm, I would like to help people embrace their body and be happy with the body they have. This project is inspired by how society is looks at the body image of an individual. It is Important to me that people accept themselves how they are and are not let down by what other people say.I decided to continue the same theme as my midterm because I was truly inspired and motivated to show my classmates that being yourself and accepting who you are is all that matters. You must love yourself before being able to love someone else. When deciding what i wanted to do for this final project I looked back at my midterm project and seeing the reaction of how my professor and classmates reacted about how confident I was with myself and explain how my body was being judged by my own family members. My project is a mini collage of inspirational pieces of different magazines. Ana Mendieta's work is what kept me motivated to continue my project as body acceptance because she was so confident and made beautiful work exposing herself in her work. I think my images shows a sense of confidence and body acceptance and shows that I have been motivated to love myself and what I look like. The difference between my first project and the last project had changed a lot because my first project I based it more on the influence John Berger had on me about loving yourself and how mirrors can make or break you. This final project was inspired by Ana Mendieta's work in nature and body acceptance is what made me think about making my project a tree shaped as a woman with curves and out of her branches come out different inspirational saying I found in a magazines.

Final Self Project (Connect & Disconnect to Nature)

Rosa Garcia, Am I Alive, 2017

For my final project I decided to paint an image of nature and disconnect to nature. I was inspired by Ana Mendieta and Remedio Varos. I wanted to present a simple (minimal) painting exploring the idea of three separate parts of nature and my soul connections and disconnections.The image itself has a rose to show the beauty of nature as well as symbol of me. I wanted to show the different colors of rose to show that no color pertains to self and nature. Everyone and everything is a different color representing different aspects of self. I wanted highlight the light of it all separating it from the dark  background.The beauty of nature , in my eyes, is the colors of my surroundings. This leads to the center of the piece which is the eye. The eye bleeding is for the constant sights I see and abide to as well as the pain from the struggles in life (personal situations). This is the disconnect to nature. We are what we see in a sense, and not many look around and embrace what’s around. The materialistic takes over. The eye is the perspective of the outside and inside  as well as the sacrifice of ourselves we have giving into the aspects we don't pay attention too. We bleed to suit the eyes of others .  The butterfly is the soul flying away. Specifically my soul. I feel that I am always changing and adjusting, flying away from what I was. Change is the only thing that is permanent.  The colors chosen for the butterfly were light and cool tones, to show an opposite of the rose but also highlighting the light again contrasting from the dark background. The butterfly is a connection and disconnection, we fly away from what we should embrace which is the disconnection. The connection is the butterfly itself shows a form of growth. We are following a cycle of life but we are the ones in charge of what to do with it.

I chose this image because originally I was working on something surreal and heavy. It wasn’t the best representation of myself. I wanted more me in the image. I wanted a dark background. I used various paints to create a gradient. I blended a lot of colors in order to create the right tone. I think when someone sees the image, they think of simple things. They do not see the hidden messages. The only emotional part of the image is the eye itself. The reaction to the rose is “it’s beautiful”. This project is different from my previous project in many aspects. There is less going on. It’s a painting rather than a collage. It still shows my style just in a different perspective. What made me change and try something new is the journey of discovering a different art. I wanted to paint and because I did, I fell in love. It’s not perfection but it’s improved in time. Painting is so detailed and technical. The group project also inspired me connecting surrealism in a minimal way like Remedio Varos did. I felt so connected with paintings and darkness in the paintings that I wanted to show my own form of light and dark. I also wanted to show nature within in the picture. I was inspired by Ana Mendieta and her form of representation. I wanted to take some qualities of her themes of disconnections and connections to nature.

self -love

For my final self-portrait I decided to create a slideshow of photos I have taken over the past two weeks and a few from before. The concept I was going for, was that of self-love., too many years I have been ashamed of myself and my body, things that I don’t have that much control of. But when I started this class and we looked at artists like Cindy Sherman, Frida Kahlo, and even Ana Mendieta, I felt a sort of pride in myself. these women unconsciously started a revolution inside me. they taught me that there is beauty and safety in all of your insecurities. Before this class I enjoyed capturing images, but not of myself, but this class prompted me to turn the lens onto myself.

I decided to create a video, or a slideshow of photos of myself, photos of me embracing myself and my body for about two minutes, in contrast to my last project being a painting on canvas. My midterm was on the concept of growth, whereas my final is centralized on self-love and body positivity, which are completely pivotal in growing in every aspect of your life. it took me a while to come to that realization, that there was no way I could’ve grown as a person if I didn’t began loving and caring for myself as well as the world around me.

NB: I tried to add the audio of the poem to my video but my mic on my laptop broke, so I have attached here a poem entitled : "It Gets Easier" , by me.

They say it gets easier 

But they never tell you about the journey it takes to get to the easy

They never tell you about how you'll can't look at yourself in the mirror 

Or how the only way you'll fall asleep for the next few years was after hours of crying 

Crying tears that could fill every bathtub in every city in every country , in every planet. 

Crying tears so bitter and blameful 

Bitter and Blameful towards yourself 

Being bitter and blaming yourself 

Blaming yourself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time

Blaming yourself for not screaming loud enough 

Blaming yourself for becoming helpless at the hands of a man who seemed to become deaf of the sound of the word no 

Blaming yourself for seeing his face in every face of every person who wore their heart on their sleeves and was rooting for you 

Blaming yourself for hating yourself. 

They never tell you that before you get to the easy, you must first past through the blame. 

Final self portrait: "It's all in your head, it's all in my head"

Raquel Mendieta, Its all in my head, May 2017

      For my final self-portrait I decided to take on the idea of how the media controls the mind. We get fed CD's of information that tell us what is good and whats bad and it's like we don't even have a true conscience anymore. We rely on our surroundings to tell us but in reality the the business of tricking the consumers is whats keeping them in power. I used the CD's as a literal reference for the media and also a metaphor. The CD's represent how people become useless once we aren't able to better ourselves. They are slowly starting to become like VCR's: a thing of the past. Then the question of: What do we do with them afterwards? We take the information from them and use it with something better. The un-cracked CD at the top is the new wave of information that media is feeding us, while at the same time we also get attacked from it as well. It becomes no wonder people suffer from such anxiety and depression to look like and act like a certain way, because were scared of becoming useless.
    The black is supposed to be what happens when we let other's, real human beings, spread the consumerism. As a female especially, the idea of being consumer is something no one can control. We have to be the consumer of all lady products such as makeup and hair products. The part of being a consumer sounds as if we have the power to buy and not buy but it's not true, we become a slave to the advertisement. When someone wants to go beyond the spectrum of advertising, we get told there's something wrong with us. This brings me to the point of taking the statement, "it's all in your head" and use it to see something different then what we normally think of. We normally think that something is wrong with us and we use our mind to blame us for being curious. "Its all in your head" becomes an excuse for others to make you literally drive yourself crazy.

Self-Portrait: “We the People...No! We the Labels..."

We the Labels

For my final project as my self-portrait I decided to dress an issue that I feel is the greatest in the U.S. My self-portrait is called “We the People...No! We the Labels...” I chose to use the side of my body’s shadow facing towards the right direction as a layout. Surrounding my shadow are words that describe me as a person physically and internally. As for the inside of my shadow, viewers will only notice labels and images. These labels and images are what I feel people see me as, but others are what I feel, what I usually think of, what I fear, and what I want. The entire portrait is black and white and grey. I chose the black background because I feel as if this world is dark with no colors and people look at others as a label rather than an actual person. Many people would probably disagree, but they did not read Joanne Finkelstein “The Art of Self Invention.” In the last couple chapters, it mentions how people usually label others through entertainment. Sooner than later it became a habit and so we chose to act certain ways in front of people because we think it is the “appropriate” way to act. Compared to my mid-term project, which was a game board of my life in the past, present and future, I worried about I wanted others to see, that is a future doctor. But that was because I was blinded to see the real issues that are around me. We became the way we are because of what others say and what others wear. We choose to wear certain types of clothes to give a message. This is where labels come into play.

Through labels, we choose to be who we want to be. Cindy Sherman chooses to be who she wants to be by wearing different outfits and just becoming a different person. The choices are given to us as babies when we choose the toys to play with or when we wear the clothes given to us by our family members. Growing up we have choices. We try Nike, Adidas, Champs, etc. for athletes. When one is trying to “look professional” we wear a suit and tie or a casual dress. Sophie Calle’s idea of using another’s perspective as art inspired me. When we grow older and we look at images from years back we are looking back at another’s perspective. For example, before I thought Jordans were cool, but now I love wearing Aldo shoes and Toms. When I wore Jordans, I was in Spanish Harlem. There was this trend where kids who wore the latest shoes were cool. Now I wear Aldo shoes and Toms to show I am more mature and a young adult. This supports the idea that small labels can easily affect people in a greater way. We become labeled in our communities and societies. This is why I chose to use words that describe me as a layout. To my friends, I am loud, crazy, dramatic, outgoing, mean (sometimes), bold, honest, etc. In my house, I am very very lazy (sometimes, I just like to relax), loud, “munchy”, and just a family person. At my job, I am motivated, devoted to my school work and job, friendly, caring, funny, etc. As to others, I am a short, Mexican female, who is to herself, and is pretty smart. Different environments and social groups come with different labels.

The top of my head are things or issues that are currently in place that I cannot keep out of my head such as deportation, my parent’s citizenship, my career, the pathway towards my goals, responsibilities at home, and children losing their parents because of immigration. This is one of many things that I fear. All these labels and images just play over and over in my head. Throughout my body, there are other issues needed to be address like women degradation, being a female with a perfect slim lean body, having expensive clothes to fit in with others, immigration, and my personal issue would possibly be losing faith in God. With all that is going on, we receive another piece of reality and the real world responsibilities and issues. This is why we became labeled. Since I am Mexican, people would think I crossed the border, not knowing I was actually born in this country doing great in school and with everything else that I can thanks to my immigrant parents. We are labels and will continue to be viewed as labels.

Self-Image final project

Arianny Espinal, Self-Image 2017

          Whether you are out with friends or even at home, a person’s self-image is one of the most important things. People’s image affects the way in which we apprehend ourselves and each other. Society affects their self-images. We have an image of the perfect body which affects how we look at ourselves. Self- image isn’t something a person is born with. Self- image are numbers of self-impressions that are built up over a period. A group of elements influences these impressions. I believe three of the most influential elements are self- esteem, significant others, and the media. Most young Americans have problems with their self- image because of the media. Self- esteem is the part of self-image that involves evaluations of one’s self- worth. Most people have a distorted view of their self- image. Self- esteem plays a huge factor in this. Depending on your outlook on life a person can have high or low self- esteem. Most people with low self- esteem judge themselves against unreasonable standards. They try to live up to societies expectations. Conforming to what society says is right, making it difficult to find one’s self as an individual.
          For my project, I used an image of what media considers “the perfect body”.  I used many words that are used every day to describe women. We are often being called beautiful, ugly, fat, sexy, etc. We are also often told how to act, how to look, simply how to be someone we are not. No matter how many compliments we receive we will always be insecure about ourselves because there will always be the negative comments which affect us the most. 

          My project was inspired by Jon Berger because of his understanding of the male gaze. Because of the objective portrayal of women in the media and advertisement, some women view themselves as objects and start feeling less attractive. People’s opinions can affect how a woman views her appearance. Media portrays the ideal body image. The people most often portrayed and affected by these messages are young women. Females can feel pressure to live up to these ideals which are most often unattainable. Companies such as Revlon, Cover Girl, Maybelline, L’Oreal insist that girls must look a certain way if they want to be anything. They take no responsibility for the negative image that they portray. The worse self-image a woman has, the more beauty products she will buy to try and “improve” her looks. And there is no better way to make her think she is ugly than to subject her to thousands of unrealistic, airbrushed pictures of models to compare herself to.

Self - Empowered Final Project (Gabriela Ortiz)

This is the before and after of my self portrait project on Self-Empowerment.

 This is my final self portrait project. My self portrait is called Self- Empowered. This self portrait has an image of my full on face and a sketched nude female upper body underneath of my image. I painted one side with the colors blue, purple, and green. I painted the other side a bright color (Orange and brown.) The darker side for me is tranquility; it is supposed to be my calm side, and the brighter side is supposed to be my fierce side. Each side has different words that have meaning behind them (which I'll explain in class.) I used the soft, kind words on the darker side (which is supposed to be the calmer side of me), and I put on the other side, words that are supposed to be powerful for the female. All the words are supposed to be uplifting and should help and encourage every woman who reads this to stand up for their rights, to feel empowered, and to feel comfortable in their own skin.

 I used John Berger for my self portrait because I can relate to his explanation on how women and men are portrayed differently and how they have different representations in this world. The googly eyes on my face represent the men surveying me. I used two red googly eyes on the nipples, as well. I decided to put the red color of eyes on the nipples because that is a sexual part of the body. Also, red for the nipples means romance, and of course, the eyes are the men surveying my body, especially the breasts. I decided to sketch the breasts as perfect and perky as possible with the smallest nipples. Why ? Well, almost all men are introduced to perfect perky breasts when watching porn, movies, and TV shows. The media for years has shown perfect bodies on social media and all. This to me is not okay at all because they are giving false information about the female body. Everyone is different, and every female has different bodies. Every breast comes in different shapes, colors, and all. These men go on having wrong expectations on how the female body should be. Once the men is in contact with an actual natural female body, they are confused, disappointed, and even shame these unique bodies. This goes back to making us, females, feel insecure/ self conscious about our bodies. When we become self conscious about our bodies, we end up surveying ourselves because of how men view us, which leads to us thinking that we are "objects," when really, we are so much more than that. Us, Women, face a lot of judgement, especially from men. We are shamed most of the time for being who we truly are and embracing our perfectly imperfect bodies. I wanted to talk about this in class because it is a topic everyone should talk about. It is an important topic that should be talked about and recognized because we have more to offer than our bodies. I wanted to share through my self portrait how I feel when it comes to gender inequality, when it comes to my image, and when it comes to being who I truly am. I put these words as a reminder that being a woman is an incredible thing. I want every girl/ woman to feel they are worthy when reading these words, too. This self portrait is supposed to remind me and the rest of us, females, that being different and who you really are what makes us valuable and unique.

 This self portrait should make me (and every other female) feel empowered of themselves.Still today, we are facing gender inequality and are viewed as just objects, and honestly,  it is time to break the stereotype of females.. Also, I decided to cover my eyes with yellow googly eyes, to make it seem like I have super powers. The yellow eyes represent light, power, and authority. My final self portrait is a little bit different to the midterm self portrait because on the midterm, I drew a silhouette with images that represent me, my culture, and my interests. The final self portrait is more confused on feminism, gender inequality, body positivity, and self love. It's a self portrait of me, but any female can relate to me. I made the choice to make my self portrait the way it is because it is a topic that should be talked about more , and also to make females (including myself) feel valuable with the uplifting words I put on the self portrait. The content of this image is me and the body image. The process of this portrait was kind of tedious. I used liquitex acrylic paint, magazine cut out words, I sketched with my pencil, I drew, I used nude Crayon for the upper body (breasts), I also used colorful googly eyes to make my project look very alive,colorful, different, and powerful. The colors being vibrant are to represent us females. Doing this final portrait made me feel much better about myself. After reading these words, it made me feel super empowered of myself. I know others reading this will be touched and feel more confident because I know it worked for me. I consider my work a graphic print because I made it. I feel this self portrait can be compared to Cindy Sherman's work because I look different and my work looks a bit creepy and sexual. What influenced these chances were the readings of John Berger, and the work of Cindy Sherman. I wanted my self portrait to not only represent me and my struggles. I know other women may experience the same feeling I feel and the judgement as a woman. John berger helped me a lot create this self portrait because it taught me a way to express how I truly feel about myself, gender inequality, and surveyance through an image of myself. 

  

Self Essay

We learn about identity aJonathan Paszkiewicz

Self: I as Image

Professor Cacoilo

April 20, 2017

Self Essay

Ana Mendieta "Untitled"

Jon Paszkiewicz "Untitled"

Images of ourselves are literally every where. We are constantly taking photos of ourselves and posting them on social media. We have become become obsessed as a society to intervene ourselves into an image. Putting us at the center of attention. In my image you see me putting myself in the middle of a beautiful view. Unlike Ana Mendieta’s image where she wants to be apart of the natural scene she photographs, my image shows the self intervention between the camera and the natural scene. We do this almost to represent ourselves in our images.

Jon Paszkiewicz " Untitled"

Mickalene Thomas-
"You're Gonna Give Me The Love I Need"

People take selfies in certain places to try and portray a version of themselves to the public. In my image that I based off of Mickalene Thomas's works, I wanted to portray myself in the version I  want to have the world see. It is the side of me that I choose to represent me just like how Mickalene chooses how she wants to represent herself. This goes to show that if we create and control the images of ourselves that we share it communicates a little who we are and culture through images.

Jon Paszkiewicz "Untitled"

Andy Warhol- "Campbell's Soup Cans"

Andy Warhol is a good example of this. His images reveal a lot about the culture during his time. There was an abundance in consumerism and mass reproduction of items like cars and such. His works consisted of exactly that as shown in this image. My image although mimics the reproductive style of Warhol, does not have a consumerist theme behind it. It gives more identity of who I am.

Michelle Melendez
Self I As Image
Professor Doris Cacoilo

April 18, 2017

    “To collect pictures is to collect the world” Susan Sontag. Collecting pictures as always been much more than just a piece of paper for me. Collecting pictures is collecting memories, collecting the world, for me collecting pictures is reviving memories that I might never be able to experience again. Every picture I have represents something special. They say that we always photograph the things that we are so afraid to loose and throughout my life I realize that’s true because I always find myself photographing those things that I always wanna keep, that i’m afraid to let go.

    The first time I heard about this class I knew I had to take it, and I don’t regret it. If I love selfies and pictures, this class made me love it a little more. I learned that there was so much more to just taking a picture. The background, the people, the way you take the picture, each little thing matters. Pictures represent something and artist decided to use them to bring out a point, to show people what’s happening in real life in a way that they know and like. Thee first artist we worked with was Cindy Sherman and I fell in love with her work and the way she uses pictures to represent women. I was excited while reading about sherman’s work, especially when she utilizes a wide variety of makeup techniques, masks and prostheses to create a truly stunning and grotesque representation of the body. When it was my chance to create a selfie, I wanted to do something that represented women and they way they are seem. I created mine as the way men se woman in today’s society, as a doll, as a sex toy. Because of the way they dress, or how much makeup they have on. I decided to be a doll, more like a naked doll to represent the way men view women, when it should not be like that.

    The male gaze has always been one of my favorite topics and a big controversy in photography and art. “A woman is always accompanied, except when quite alone, and perhaps even then, by her own image of herself. While she is walking across a room or weeping at the death of her father, she cannot avoid envisioning herself walking or weeping. From earliest childhood she is taught and persuaded to survey herself continually. She has to survey everything she is and everything she does, because how she appears to others and particularly how she appears to men is of crucial importance for what is normally thought of as the success of her life” ( John Berger, ways of seeing).  John berger did not only talked about the male gaze but he broke it down and showed us why the male gaze really exists. Naturally, the way female bodies were presented as an object to look at had an affect on women. In the quotes which I included in this paragraph berger bring a point that might be familiar to many women. You are never yourself, you are how you appear to others, especially men.

The Campbell’s soup can collecton by Andy Warhol was really interesting, who thinks about painting soup cans?  I was so curious to find out why soup cans and I found something really interesting. Soliciting suggestions for subjects to paint, he asked a friend, who suggested he choose something that everybody recognised like Campbell’s Soup. In a flash of inspiration he bought cans from the store and began to trace projections onto canvas. At this time he received a return studio visit from Irving Blum of Ferus Gallery, Los Angeles, who was expecting to see comic-strip paintings and was surprised by the new soup cans. Everyone was surprised but it was a success. I created my own set of pics trying to have my own collection.

    How can I talk about art, photography and paintings without talking about Frida Kahlo. Frida is one of my favorites, her work is just so amazing. One of my assignments for this course was to go to a museum during spring break. I decided to go to the MoMA because I wanted to see Frida’s work in person. Going to the MoMA was a whole adventure. From taking the path train to walking through the beautiful street of NY in such a cold day, to getting to the museum. Everything was so fun.I was surprised and sad to know that they only have two of of her painting, but happy at the same time because I got to see them.

   

When I used to think about images and elfie, I never thought about how much work this artist actually put into creating their work. Learning that a pictures is much more than just an image of an object of something we like or just a moment that we will like to cherrist for the rest of our lives was amazing. This course taught me to look beyond the image, look for the meaning because every pictures has it’s own. Now I look at photographs and painting in a whole new way, a better one. If I loved pictures before now I love them even more.