For our final in my painting class, we did a painting completely different than any others that we had done in the class thus far. This one wasn’t strictly from life, we could use photographs and it was up to us to morph multiple things/images into one final image. We were to pick two things, one 2D object and one 3D object, with one being reminiscent of our past and one being related to our lives now. This is what I ended up with:

So what does it represent about me? Well, the background is a fabric pattern. I liked this pattern- a quatrefoil pattern reminiscent of Gothic Architecture and I love art and art history. It is also very graphic and I love graphic design. It is also fabric, which I love and want to design my own collection of one day. Fabric represents a lot in my life. Learning to sew when I was young, my mom sewing all kinds of things, my love of the home and home decorating.  I’ve been looking for fabric for curtains for our new apartment and I was drawn to lots of pretty graphic patterns like this one. It just seemed fitting.

The watering can and flowers represents my childhood, home, growing up, my parents. I was always outside in our backyard as a kid, so obviously something related to nature would be perfect for relating to my past. My dad is an avid collector of various old/antique things and I guess my mom mentioned to him sometime how she liked watering cans and that began a period of him collecting all kinds of them for her. Most of them looked really similar to this one. I remember as a kid, filling them up with water from the hose and dragging them around the yard to water all the flower beds. The flowers inside this watering can are the same flowers that my mom would let us pick out at the feed store every summer in little cartons to plant in the yard and help her do the gardening.

Tying the two together in a cohesive way represents the meshing of my past with my present and how they are ever intertwined, but separate in a way as well. But then again, that is kind of obvious.

I’m so thankful for all that I learned in my painting class and I’m kind-of sad to see it end! Although I am happy that I’m done with school for the semester! I’m so ready for this summer!  I can’t believe that I’m halfway done with college though. It has gone by so fast!