Sketches Pt. 1

Here are the majority of my sketches, they'll be placed with the original project as well.

Emerging / Turning

This semester has been a huge semester for contemplation in many of my classes, exploring ideas about myself in others, and in this class finding new ways to express what I feel.  I'm in a state of moratorium, of change and growth.  I'm still not done, but i can see myself turning outwards after a period of inward reflection.  I have more of an idea of who I am on a basic level, and I wanted to use this project for masking my identity to show that.  Initially I present a much different version of myself to the world, and I'm gradually opening that up beyond the need for an identity mask.  I may not be simply, or especially unique in the grande scheme of things, but I have my own face, my own purpose and drives.  

I wanted to start out with an ambiguous shape that could be many people, and yet was a tad shapeless enough to not stand for everyone at once. 

 Here are a few process pictures of when my mask was staring to finally take shape.  I went with two pieces so my idea of being masked as hidden couple more adequately communicated.  This way the head almost fit into the shoulder piece like a turtle. 

After playing around with several idea as to what to use for the background so it would make sense symbolically for the mask; I settled upon a nature background. I didn't want anything too provocative because I planned on using the posing of the figure to communicate the growth.
I lifted the idea from the Humanistic and Romantic movements where nature is thought to be the best place to be the best man or woman you can be.  That nature is the respite from the stress and problems of not just city life but the pollution of the human spirit. I don't necessarily follow that creed, but emerging from nature is akin to me, to emerging from a safer place to face the city, the world or whatever else need be.

I wanted to show the mask in an untouched crouched position,l to show how much of a ball my emotions tend to be in when I'm holding them in.  That just because I've pulled back doesn't mean I'm calm. 

Slowly starting to emerge, I have the mask being torn open as I turn to wards to sun, towards opening up, out of nature. 

Here the process is further along, the mask's deteriorating more pronounced as I open up throughout the semester and as I begin to fully stand up and through any illusions of who I am. 

As a final emergence from the masked cage, looking upwards and outward from the self is my new identity.  I'm in a stage of examining other concepts and histories as they fit into my self-concept, not of how I fit into others' stories. This is my own narrative and I'm going to be taking a more active role, a role that doesn't need to pretend or hide what I think and feel.  I am facing the light, with nature and it's reassurances at my back, my mask becoming a background (purposefully in the photograph to make use of the white, and metaphorically,) for myself, and emphasis of who I am today because I have my mask as my past.  My old shelter.

I have emerged, I have grown and I am uplifted.