Thursday a.m. Idea Post 10/22

Going through this last installment of my college career has got me thinking about how all of this will wrap up and end abruptly on December 12th. After four and a half years, how do you sum up your final collection and technically be done with it? (even if I do choose to revisit it at a later date). I have been quite nostalgic this past week and digging up old memories from my short stint at JMU to my somewhat longer stay here at VCU. These years in college are filled with instances and experiences that have brought me to where I am today and have influenced the work I am making today. Sophomore year while in AFO one of my first visiting artist lectures was in the AFO building with Kate Gilmore speaking about her latest performance work. I knew I was really intrigued by her words and her actions, I just did not realize that she would be someone who would have such a strong influence on me and on what I would do months before graduation. Taking the Senior Portfolio class out of order has actually benefited me as a person and has also done great things for my body of work. I have had the opportunity to work with two different classes of photo students: the class that I have essentially grown up with during my time at VCU Photo and the class that was one year ahead of me. Not having the strong personal ties with the class ahead of me, I felt that my critiques with them were more about my work and less about me. Because I am an emotional person I tend to read into things heavily and not really knowing any of these kids that were critiquing my work really helped. It was straight forward and all about the work. And because of the amount of good feedback I received last semester, I feel very comfortable moving away from my last semester’s performances and moving into a new genre of performances. These performances of the every day woman across the world are something new and exciting for me to really dive into and explore. I, as a 23-year-old female, have that inner desire to do something out of character ever so often aiming to release something pent up inside. We all have something different that we hold inside and that something is usually on our minds frequently and has tendencies to really bring us down. Last semester the performances were focused on struggles, opening up and digging into you to find some answers and some truth. The performances showed the process and now I would like for these new performances to conclude my time here as an undergraduate and answer some questions. Questions being where are I am going, how do I feel, how have I changed, how have I grown, who have I become… to name a few. I could never have predicted how my life would have panned out in college (and I would not have wanted to either). However, I can say that I would never have seen myself become the woman/artist that I currently am. The amount of strength and self esteem that I have gained from my time spent here is something that I would never want to give back or do with out. I feel comfortable making work that is important to me and I get excited when speaking of that work with others and sharing my enthusiasm about it. I crave visual knowledge on a daily basis and am always looking at life moving by more intently now; picking up on smaller portions of the day that may really have something important to tell you.

This is my evening of being a senior and being nostalgic. Amen.