How to: Musical Chairs

How to: play musical chairs 

Songs of the Week 1

Song One: Fool by WINNER

Son Two: A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman 

Song Three: Rewrite the Stars from The Greatest Showman 

Song Four: Broken by Lovelytheband

Somg Five: The Greatest by Sia

Life Story

I was born in Nanning Guangxi China. I was abandoned in front of a police station at the mere age of three days old. I guess you could say that I had a bit of a rough start to say the least. I'm an international adoptee living in America. I grew up with a really great education. My high school was one of the top three public schools in CT. I took art classes, danced in a company, I even learned multiple languages.  

I was really lucky at my high school. I learned three instruments and was in the advanced choirs. I went to the Estelle Jones School of Dance taking ballet, pointe, lyrical, tap and jazz. Dance is one of the things that has shaped who I am today. 

Art is definitely another major part of my life. I took AP Studio Art and wanted to study art education. In preparation for college, I sent out my portfolio and waited. I was a pretty average student for my high school. I was on the honor roll and was pretty accomplished for a normal high schooler.  I got my acceptance letter from Alfred University not really knowing much about it. I applied to other schools but none stood out to me. After touring Alfred University, I was set on becoming an art student. Since completing my first semester at Alfred I have changed a lot I've become stronger, more mature, I learned that sometimes its ok to speak up. My life story isn't finished yet but I am excited to see what will come next.

The 14 lights represent 14 parts of my life and tied together to make me

Weekly Photos 1

Studio Portrait:

Portrait in Miller dance studios

Viewpoint Portrait: 

Piano Keys

Abstract Portrait: 

Public Self:

The concept for this photo was to have myself look very cute and almost childish. Most people mistake my age for being in high school and they think I am very young or youthful. 

Private Self:

I wanted to portray myself as more mature and elegant because I am originally a classically trained ballet dancer. I wanted to show others how I am more mature than people think I am. 

Collection

 My collection of things that were made or found in Alfred was doodles or art scraps made by art students/professors. I wanted to do this collection because it's a little piece of someone's creativity. I am a believer that people's art represents much of themselves and who they are as a person and I got a bunch of little pieces of other people's personality.

 

Art Teacher Shadowing Experience: (Quick Recap)

Over the winter break I had the opportunity to shadow two elementary school teachers for kindergarten and art (K-5) getting to sit in on the classes and interact with the students. I got to talk to the art teacher and ask her questions of her experience being an art teacher and how she makes lesson plans etc. The teacher that helped me let me shadow wanted me to get in some field work with children to see what it is like to be in a classroom working with a wide range of ages. She wanted me to decide sooner rather than later if education is what I wanted to do as a profession or what age group I am most interested in. After my few days of shadowing I saw myself enjoying working with kids and acting as a student teacher in the art classes. I shadowed the art classes of grades K-5th and shadowed a normal kindergarten classroom. I found out that I really did enjoy teaching the younger grades especially K-4. I did get to work with some of the special education students which I really liked because I could see how the art teacher would modify the assignments to their needs which I did not think about when teaching. During the time that I was observing classes I could see how children would react to the teacher and how different the classes acted depending on the time of day. 

In conclusion, I saw how much a teacher does for their students and how the teacher works with the students and not the other way around. From the teachers that I met, they all work really hard to plan lessons according to the curriculum and to meet the needs of each student. When I was watching the teachers interact with the students, I could see myself in that profession teaching art. I do have a great interest in getting certified for teaching kindergarten and K-12 art education. I feel very motivated to continue studying at Alfred University to get my teacher certification for art education and get certified to teach elementary education if possible. 

Students working on a coloring page made by me

Write Up on Podcast

In the story on Tonya on Fire it is about a girl who looks just like Tonya Harding, a former figure skater who was rumored to be responsible for the clubbing of the famous athlete Nancy Kerrigan before the olympics of 1994. The girl was always compared to her and was looked down upon for looking like Tonya. Throughout the podcast it talked about how the girl tried to not look like Tonya and changed her hair but then she ended up getting into acting because she realized her asset was looking like Tonya.She was not the most thrilled to be compared to such a controversial figure in history.

Snap Classic-Tonya on Fire

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/snap-classic-tonya-for-hire/id283657561?i=1000399554580&mt=2

Storytelling Assignment

I decided to do the storytelling assignment using the text of The Giver by Lois Lowry because since middle school it has become one of my favorite books. I always enjoyed the idea of dystopian societies in literature and this book in specific always reminded me of how complicated people are emotionally. I decided to read a few sentences from chapter 16 because the text is about Jonas the main character if his parents love him but because he has certain emotions that others cannot feel or understand. His parents' response was that it was silly of him to use the word "love" which really struck me ever since I was younger wondering how could people ever live without feeling. 

Interview Questions:

Question 1: What was your very first encounter in art?

Question 2: What do you think defines you as an artist?

Question 3: When do you think your initial passion for making your own art begin?

Question 4: What do you think separates you from other artists from your generation?

Question 5: Who do you think most influenced you as and artist?



Question 1: What do you think is your medium?

Question 2: When did you start taking your art seriously?

Question 3: What medium(s) do you not have a lot of experience with but want to learn more about?

Question 4: Who is your favorite artist that inspires you?

Question 5: Where do you find inspiration in art?

http://bombmagazine.org/articles/lucy-dodd-by-rashid-johnson/

The Balloon Project: Documantation Checklist

Explanation of the Assignment:
Today in class our assignment was inspired by The Voyager Mission more specifically, the Golden Record. The assignment was to create a message that we would want to send to aliens not using words but making a visual translation of the text. I then drew images to represent my message as if an extraterrestrial happened to read it after it was released. We had to document our messages and our envelope that we also had to decorate them. To release our letters we tied them to balloons with string to be released into the sky. The class had to decide the right place to release our letters and we decided to walk to hairpin that overlooked the town and SUNY Alfred and we got to decide how we got there (ex: get coffee or go through other buildings across campus). We all released our balloons at the same time over hairpin. As we released the ballots we documented the release through photo and video. For this project it made me realize that it was not about the end product but it was about the process. I personally had my balloon's string break and my letter was released a bit earlier than everyone else but it did not hinder my understanding of the assignment. I think my letter was more of a vague question to ask but my message could have different interpretations. For my documentation I did mostly photography and included video. I also walked up to hairpin with a few people and they had asked us about what we were doing and they asked if we were art students which thought was very interesting. I made me realize how much of an artistic community I live in and how art is its own language that even someone across the world could understand.

Rough Sketches of the letter

 Left image: front of the letter        Right image: back of the letter

Envelope Drawing

Other classmates preparing their letters and traveling to the launch site

My release of the letter

Group Release photo at Hairpin 

Group Release Video

Photographic Self Portraits: Alter Ego & Future Self

Alter Ego

For the first week back from break all of the foundations students were together to create photographic portraits of themselves working in groups of 3-4. We were supposed to think about what defines us and our own self identity. My first idea for the topic of our alter ego would be for me to be really dark and scary because I felt like that was very outside of my comfort zone. I wanted the photos to represent an opposite side to my personality and for other people to see a different style to me as an artist. I was really happy with my photos for my alter ego because I was a bit "afraid" to attempt doing this prompt with this approach because some of the other students were not the most supportive of my vision but I decided to go with my instincts and follow through with my idea and I think that it made me realize how I am my own artist and I can make my own decisions. 

Future Self

For my future self portraits I was a little bit lost for what direction I wanted to go in because the "future" is a very broad concept. I first thought about doing a portrait of me as a modern dancer because I am a dance minor learning different dance styles and I could see myself improving through my time at Alfred University. I also thought of the idea to just do photos of me as myself: happy and healthy because I did not know where I would be in the future in a few years but I know that I will be happy. My third idea was to do a portrait of me as a new art teacher because I want to teach elementary art education after I graduate from Alfred. I decided to do my third idea because I felt like it would be a good contrast from my alter ego portrait. I also think that the third idea incorporated the second idea as well.