Why Change?

Why Change My Capstone So Far In?

For a long time, since the start of the year basically, I felt inclined to do something that would be directly affecting the community in a positive way, that would help my peers and the school thrive in a very upfront way. I thought that there had to be a solid and really obvious connection to how it affected the community, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it doesn’t always have to be.

I initially wanted to start out with everyone making little ceramic ornament/trinket things that would be a sort of resemblance of their identity as a person. Who they genuinely were and want to become just because highschool can seem really superficial at times. But the further I moved on with this project in mind, the more inauthentic and fake it seemed to be. It didn’t feel like it was a process that I could really accomplish in simply a year. And the further I looked into it, the more I realized that this should be a journey that we kind of need to figure out ourselves. We can be set in the right direction, but its really only ourselves that can make it happen in the end. No matter how hard I would have tried with surveys and trinkets, I don’t think it would make the impact I would've wanted it to make.

Now that I’ve come to this conclusion, I realized that I wanted to do something a bit more self-focused. It's been an extremely hard year for just about everyone for a multitude of reasons. There's COVID, there’s college applications, there's highschool and school in general. Throughout all of this, I realized that I needed some time for myself and my self reflection which is why I want to make a ceramic collection that's just based on “how I feel today”.

My “How I Feel Today” collection would be focusing on the present, and my identity and emotions in the present. Once the collection is done, then it’ll show the growth and changes within my identity, etc. I wanted to switch over to this project for a multitude of reasons: I felt like I never had time for myself, I don't have an outlet to just be, I want to focus on the present (not what could be or what should’ve been), I want to better myself as a person, etc. Although doing a self-focused project doesn’t seem very community focused, I think it actually is. Because I don’t have this outlet to just exist in the present and be myself, I’ve been stuck in a rut and stuck in my head, and I don't want it to be that way. So I believe that in focusing on myself and bettering myself, I can open up to my friends and family in a way that can help them as well. It’s individuals that make up a community so self reflection is just as important as communal works.

In terms of logistics, I would create one or two small ceramic pieces everyday, maybe one in the morning, one at night (or possibly E period/B period too). In doing it at the same time everyday, I would make it almost an experiment or an observational piece-y type of thing. Before creating each piece, I would write in a journal how I’m feeling. It wouldn’t be the generic happy or sad, but I would want it to be something more abstract and creative, like a daisy in a field or a drop of rain. With my thoughts in my journal, I would then go on to create something that resembled my mood along with my thoughts. At the end of the month (if I were to do 2 a day), I could come up with around 60 pieces. I’ve thought about making a display with it (possibly just attaching them all together on this mountain of thoughts and self reflection) or I could make them more practical if that's what I’m feeling and give them away to friends and family.

I still have some tweaks to work out and likely more research to do (mostly on self reflection and maybe meditation types of things), but I feel content with this project and confident that it’ll have the impact I want it to. Although there is a slight change in the focus of my project (mainly the product), it still focuses on identity, but more so the search for one's identity rather than just figuring it out in a day (which I've come to realize is very much impossible).