Curiosity Journal #1: How Can I Translate My Passions Into Art?

For my first curiosity journal, I asked the question: How can I translate my passion into art? This is a topic that means a lot to me, because I believe that I do my best work in any subject when I care about what I'm working on. My passion for the subject, and translating that subject into a different medium, helps me keep on track and motivated to keep working.

So I got a pen and my sketchbook and started writing out the things that I loved, things that I'm passionate about. It was a bit more difficult than expected, as I've come to realise that no one can really summarise who they are in the same amount of characters as a tweet. Bullet lists don't really allow for much complexity, but it worked well enough for the assignment, so it's what I went with. After that, I made a list of ideas on different mediums I could use to express these passions, but what method worked best for each thing I cared about.

I then expanded on those ideas farther down on the page. I made quick, easy notes on what each idea was, why I wanted to try it, and what I thought it would be good for; sometimes I even mention certain ideas or topics I would want to cover in each art form. These notes are just short little comments just to get the ball rolling, I'd like to expand them further in later journal entries.

I'm already working on my first project, which was based off one the ideas I wrote about in this entry; I decided to create a zine, as I'm more familiar with the medium and have worked with it before. It's going to be about body confidence and self-love, and I'm really excited about it. I've decided to call it "Thique".

Pottery, Tea Time, and a New Grade

The semester has ended but I'm still in art class, now as a Grade Twelve instead of a Grade Eleven. 

(Whoo! So much fun! So much to do! University applications! Scholarship essays! Being treated as an adult even though, until about a few months ago, everyone told me I was trying to grow up too fast! Whoooo, so much fun!*)

*Please note the obvious sarcasm. It sucks. It really sucks.

Anyway... let's push that emotional and stressful mess to the side and focus on something a lot more peaceful, a lot more calming: pottery. 

Hahahaha, no.

Whoever labeled pottery as relaxing must have been smoking a lot of grass, 'cause this stuff was hard. And frustrating. And insanity inducing. It was especially hard for someone with hands the size of a small child.

For our first assignment, we had to make two mugs, with the only requirement being that they had to be able to hold liquid. Which mine did manage to do. Barely. We used two different methods of creation, one for each of the mugs. I used the handmade method with my first mug, which I enjoyed a lot more than the potter's wheel; even though I had to remake my mug several times.

When it came to the potter's wheel, I simply wasn't a fan. Part of it was just preference, but part of it was the fact that my body is literally not built to use the wheel. My hands are really small, which kept me from making a larger mug. I don't have strong forearm's so my hands wobbled a lot. And my legs were too short to support my arms to keep the clay steady; I literally had my leg propped up on my chair just to be able to hold up my arms.

The mug I made on the wheel didn't turn out that well, either; though I know that's not the point. We're here to learn about what we like, what we're good and bad at, learn from our mistakes, etc. But it still frustrated me that I couldn't get the mug to quality and shape that I wanted it.

Looking back, I don't think pottery is something I'm going to return to, but I did learn a lot while doing this assignment, and that I'm grateful for. If nothing else, it helped me build an appreciation for those who create ceramics and pottery as a hobby, or even a living, because it's definitely not nearly as easy as I thought it would be.

One of the two terrible mugs I made.
When I showed my mum this she said, "I don't think that can hold water."
So encouraging, my mum.

My Failed Punk Rock Band Name (otherwise known as my culminating assignment)

For my culminating assignment, I really wanted to focus on a topic that drove me to create and that I was very passionate about. Obviously, being the strident feminist and proud "nasty woman" that I am, I chose to focus my culminating on discovering and exposing violence against women. (If you look back on my other projects, you will see that feminist issues in my art are kind of a running theme.)

What I really wanted to do was creating something short and impactful, I didn't want it to be to bogged down with words; I wanted the facts to speak for themselves. Because I'm not really that good of a painter or drawer, I immediately ruled out either of those types of artwork. While they did provide the quick, almost silent punch I was looking for, I wasn't confident in my ability to properly portray the serious issue of violence against women. Plus, I wanted to focus on several different aspects of violence against women and their simply wasn't enough time to create several decent paintings.

So, instead, I decided to go for zines. Zines are the perfect medium for a project like this, they're short, but able to pack a large punch; and give me the ability to tackle a different topic on each page. I'm a huge fan of mixed media (its one of my favourite art forms) and zines themselves are almost always used to discuss social and political issues, so I thought that this would be a perfect fit. Plus, I had already really liked the punk rock/ grunge look of zines, and I had already become fascinated with them after completing one for my #Canada150 project.

For the zine itself, I narrowed it down to four, full size pages, each covering a different topic. Because I am an intersectional feminist, and believe that different types of women can often face different types of issues, I wanted to include as many as possible. The four topics I decided on were: the missing and murdered indigenous women, online harassment and threats against women, the epidemic of murdered trans women throughout the world, as well as the release and protection of proven rapists.

Like I said earlier, the pages are pretty sparse, but that's the way I wanted them to be. I wanted nothing but the bare facts and most important information within the zine, because I think the facts and evidence send a larger impact then I ever could.

This page consisted of cutouts of threats that were sent on Twitter to women who dared to speak their mind, open their mouth, or, God forbid, have an opinion. *shudders* Oh the horror! (These are the tame ones by the way, there were a lot more that were even worse.)

This one looks a lot better in person, I promise. Out of all of the pages, its really the most mixed media, and next time I really want to improve on that. I chose the pink lettering and the calligraphy to offset the message and exactly what this man has done. If you don't know, this is Brock Turner, and he is essentially a human trashcan. 

This page consisted of the faces of just a handful of the missing and murdered indigenous girls within Canada. It broke my heart when I saw just how many had gone missing. I could have had a hundred pages, and it still wouldn't fit all their faces.

This page is more of a memorial than anything else. When I was reading through all of these women's names, I realized just how dangerous it is for transgender women out in the world. No news outlet ever covers their deaths, so I wanted their names to be here. So that they could be remembered.

Near the beginning of the assignment, I was really dead set on what I wanted to call the zine. But Mrs. Rose said it was inappropriate, which while a fair point, I just want to ask how come the President of the United States is allowed to say it, without any consequences, but I'm not? *please note my sarcasm and irony, I'm being satirical, please don't fail me* (If you hadn't guessed by now, I wanted to call it "Grab Her By The...... well... you know.) But, I actually turned out to be a blessing because that is now surely going to be the name of my future punk rock feminist band, so I guess it all works out in the end. Instead, I decided to call it "Grab Back". 

Yes, there is the obvious connection there, however, for the most part is has to do with the zine itself and not the troll the States just voted in as President. Instead, it has to do with women standing up for themselves, grabbing back the power that has been taken from them for centuries. To demand equal treatment and pay. To demand the right to make decisions about their own bodies. To demand that their attackers are held accountable. To reach and grab for equality, no matter how far, or how unreachable it seems.

#Canada150 Thumbnail Sketches

I wasn't able to complete my original idea for my #Canada150 project, due to complications with the video and photo sources I was going to use. So instead, I decided that I was going to make a zine and showcase the same, general idea that I had for my first version of the project, but with a bit of a twist. I was still going to highlight the flaws and mistakes that our country has made, but I was also going to show current issues, as well reflect what Canada looks like today: diverse, multicultural, and different.

My plan is to have every page be a reflection of an issue within Canada; whether that be a past issue or one that we're facing now. Some of the pages are going to be devoted to discussing residential schools and other native issues, while another will be focused on the LGBTQ+ community, and yet another on #BlackLivesMatter.

While I didn't do thumbnail sketches, because I wasn't creating a drawing or painting, I did do some planning. I tried to plan out the issues I was going to showcase and the layout of the zine itself.

Banging on the Keyboard and Cursing: Maya Attempts to Code

So this week I tried coding.

It was a bit frustrating and a bit fun. For the most part, the experience was an experience in me swearing while bashing at my keyboard, angrily trying to figure out how any of this was supposed to work. But when I did figure it out, it turned out to be a lot of fun.

Despite how annoyed I felt when I had to go back and figure out where my code had gone wrong, I liked learning about the process, how extensive coding actually is, and the feeling of satisfaction when I actually did something right.

Plus, now I have so much sympathy for people who code for a living. That stuff is real hard.

I played three of the coding games, but my favourite by far was the Flappy Bird one. I completed that one in the shortest amount of time, and I actually enjoyed it, though I did also like the Minecraft game.

Overall, while at times frustrating, coding was a fun experience and taught me a lot about how much work it is to create a functional code. I walked about from this assignment with an appreciation for the complexity of coding, and the hope that I never have to do it again.

#Canada150, or How I View Canada: Flawed, But Trying to Be Better

For the #Canada150 project, I started off as everyone else did, with a mind map. I focused primarily on myself and what I cared about in the map. I really wanted this project to focus on what I think being Canadian means, but also what I'm passionate about.

This thought developed into the idea of focusing on my activism. On my mind map I talked about being raised by parents that always encouraged my to think for myself, and were very supportive of my ideas and activist nature. However, I had to connect that back to Canada in some way, so I thought about focusing on the different social, political, ethnic, and cultural people living in Canada. My original idea was to take different symbols from different groups in Canada, make them into flags, and somehow incorporate the Canadian maple leaf (and other Canadian symbols) into them. 

But the more I thought about it, the less I liked this idea, so I abandoned it. I still wanted to focus on the diversity of Canada, and I still wanted to bring my activism into that. So, instead I decided to create a video. In this video, I really wanted to bring out and spotlight my activism, seeing as the whole project is supposed to be about you as a Canadian and how you view your country.

While I haven't created the video yet, I do have an idea of what I want to focus on throughout it. In the video I want to talk about the different social and political issues Canada has come across. I don't want to shy away from the controversial, or the horrific parts of my country's history; and therefore I will be talking about residential schools, the fight for LGBTQ+ rights, Japanese internment camps, and the women's suffrage movement. However, I also want to focus on the strides we as a country have made towards these issues. As well as how lucky I am to live in country that allows me to challenge the government, tell them they are being unfair or prejudiced, and speak up about issues like the ones we've faced in the past.

More than anything, I want this video to discuss the mistakes Canada has made in the past, their acknowledgment of those wrongs, and how they will still make mistakes in the future (because no nation or person is perfect). I want this video to talk about how what makes Canada so different and wonderful is that, unlike so many other countries, we acknowledge our wrongdoings, apologize for them, and strive to do better. 

Calligraphy, Magazines, Unfinished Projects, and HitRecord

For my first art assignment, I decided to work with calligraphy and hand lettering. I'd seen posts featuring it on Instagram before and I always thought it looked beautiful, so I thought that I should give it a go.

My original idea was to take pictures from magazines, and write some of my favourite quotes and poems on top of it in calligraphy; and technically I still did that. But I changed my theme and the types of photos I was using. Originally I had planned to use more glossy, high end fashion type shots, and pair them with poems about the female body and societies expectations of it.

Instead, I ended up using pictures from National Geographic. I picked pictures of women and girls from different cultures, different backgrounds from my own, many of them from more oppressive or restrictive cultures than my own. I chose to write more empowering, and impactful things overtop of the pictures. Rather than focusing on the body, I decided to spotlight the issues facing these girls today, and society's disregard for them. Sometimes that manifested in poems about gender stereotypes and the male gaze, and other times in quotes about powerful women.

This was my first one.
National Geographic said that she was from Indonesia, if I'm not mistaken.

The quote is from a recently found but favourite poet of mine named Rupi Kaur. It says "The kindest words my father ever spoke to me: women like you drown oceans". It retrospect, I wish I had used this quote on a different picture, one featuring water, but I couldn't find any that still suited my theme.

For this one I tried writing over the entirety of the picture,
to see what effect it would have.

For my second try, I used a photo of several young women getting ready for a traditional Indian wedding. The poem that goes along with it is from another favourite poet of mine, Blythe Baird, who posted it to her tumblr account. It says "Amongst other contradictions, we are expected to be experienced but unentered. They want to touch us and name us after their handprints. They want us to be pretty, and then when we care about being pretty, they call us vain." My only issue is with this one is that I wished the black sharpie could have appeared a bit better nearing the end of the page. It can be a little difficult to read it at times.

I do plan to do more of these, maybe a whole series of them, I'm not entirely sure yet. I already have two other photos picked out; and now I'm just trying to find the perfect poems to match them with.       

I did make a HitRecord blog, it can be found here. My user name is librariesaremyrefuge (lame, I know). I haven't posted these projects to my profile yet, I want to use a scanner to make sure they come out as good as possible, and I haven't been able to yet. They will be up soon though.