Progress and Reflections

Reflection #1

This activity really helped me to process my ideas more clearly and in a manner that could make an idea into a project. Seeing others' ideas and thought processes also helped me to develop my own approach to this capstone.

Reflection #2

The introduction to Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown.

- What ideas stood out to you?
  1. There was a lot of focus on dealing with independence/community/interdependence, adaptability, liberation, evolution, harmony, resilience, individuality, love, and spirituality. I thought it was really interesting how she was able to link all of these broad topics into a single thought.
- What resonated?
  1. What really resonated with me was either interdependence or evolution. The way in which she describes the issues and solutions involved with the two are just extremely complex and have a lot of potential for a capstone. Something else that really resonated was when she was talking about her carrer as a writer/artist and quoted Toni Bambara saying, "The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistable". She then went on to say, "...intentionally takes up space, it creates a new world". I think that this could potentially have a lot to do with my capstone since I want to incorperate art into how I showcase these global/social issues.
- What questions do you have?
  1. I don’t think I necessarily have questions about the reading but I do have questions for myself: How can I utilize this reading to further my capstone? Which ideas and themes could I pull from the reading that would match me? How does this reading relate to my capstone?
- How can you internalize this work?
  1. One would internalize this work by learning it first. If you have no knowledge of the subject, then there is no possible way to internalize it in everyday life. Once it has been learned and is kind of engraved in the mind, then you could start unconsciously assimilating it into life and everyday activities.

Reflection #3:

Problem Statement:

Day students, borders, and faculty alike are all a part of this diverse community here at HPA. But despite our efforts to seamlessly blend and mesh this multitude of cultures, we still come up short. We put this massive divide in between ourselves and others because we don’t understand each other. The fact that so many students don’t understand their own backgrounds leads to them not being able to understand and/or accept others' backgrounds and cultures, which often leads to under-representation of a community that should be equal in every aspect. This under-representation is an issue here because I think it thoroughly limits what we are able to accomplish as a community and a school. We strive for unity, yet we can’t reach that until we understand ourselves and others through where we came from and why we’re here through equal representation. All of this under-representation leads to students and faculty feeling underappreciated which in turn makes them feel out of place and unwanted which is the exact opposite of what we want as a community. People don’t understand themselves and in turn don’t want to understand each other, and this is what leads to that miscommunication that further leads to larger social issues. Sadly enough, this is extremely prominent within the school and global community as well, which is why we need to work towards fixing it.

Tadaki Problem Statement Doc

Reflection #3.1:

After some careful consideration and feedback from peers, I've made some adjustments to what I want to do as my project. After reviewing my original problem statement, I found it would be much more personal and meaningful if I were to focus on self identity in general, I was also slightly veering towards that idea in my original problem statement. I would like for it to say something more along the lines of: Despite our efforts to understand ourselves, we come up short because of societal restrictions, especially within highschool.

Reflection #4:

Types of Feedback:

Over the 3 types of feedback, I’d say I respond most to identity feedback. This is because identity feedback feels kind of like an attack on yourself as a person and as a whole instead of just critiquing specifics of your thoughts, like truth feedback does. I’d say that all types of feedback are crucial, but relationship feedback affects me the least. I think getting genuine feedback from people who you respect means a lot because they can be honest with you and help you achieve your highest potential.

Reflection #5:

October 2021:

After our intial pitch to our own capstone, we went to Mr. Mumau's capstone class to get further feedback. I think that it was an extremely beneficial time because of how different our capstone classes approached these projects, while mine was more creative-based, theirs were more statistically driven. This difference in how we all decided to approach each individual project really helped me in getting feedback from all angles. I was able to find this medium of staying on the creative side of my project like I wanted to, but was also able to incorperate more data that would emphasize the importance of my project and tweak those small things that I wasn't exactly sure about. Moving forward, I'm going to need to be in touch with the art department to figure out a way to make this whole collage come together. I've mentioned it to Mrs. Todd before, but we would need to finalize a plan that would work for everyone. I would also need to work on budgeting and materials that would work for what I plan on doing and see if I need to tweak it based on what I can get at

Reflection #6:

November 3, 2021:

I've managed to cross off a decent amount of things from my October calendar. I went to talk to Mrs. Todd about the creative and technical side of how I would be organizing the ornaments and how I would be able to spread it to the greater school community. We also went over some guidelines on what the ornaments should follow. Along with that, I reached out to Mrs. Sebastian for some research and data, and Mr. Quayle to talk about implemeting my project within the garden. Now that November has come along, I need to start working on physical prototypes of the ornaments, which I plan to do over my free period. I need to finalize my ornament guidlines to share with the ceramics classes that will be doing this project first (kind of as a test drive). Both before and during the process of creating the ornament samples, I want/need peer feedback to see what others find works and what doesn't work.

Reflection #7:

November 15, 2021:

We're now 8 days away from the prototype deadline. I've been working on my physical prototypes in the ceramics room, and some of them are on their way to the kiln. I'll probably work on at least 3 more with a wider variety to show everyone just how much potential this creative project has. Aside from the physical prototypes, I'll need to work on project guidelines for how to present this project to the student/faculty body, as well as getting more outside feedback on how others feel I could tweak the project to make it more accomodating to everyone else. I've been thinking of sending out a survey to see who's actually interested in making an ornament so that I don't overspend on clay and so that I can adjust deadlines for myself based on the amount of people willing to participate.

Reflection #8:

January 21, 2022:

It's been a bit since I've updated my portfolio but a good amount has happened since November. I've managed to put all of the smaller pieces together but I still have to work out tweaks that I come across. I've completed my guideline and instruction page (still needs to be editied) to share with the classes and school to give them an overview of what's going to be going down (in terms of my project). I've decided to add an educational piece prior to the creation of my trinket ornaments, something like a worksheet or survey that could get them on the right track of what they want to create (because its surprisingly hard to come up with things to make when you dont have prior planning especially for something so deep and personal like this). All in all, I just need to keep up and stay on track with my calendars and hopefully I'll get this done in an orderly and timely fashion, but we'll see.

My January To Do List:

figure out what to call these things; ornaments? trinkets? ceramic thing?
continue to stay in touch with Mrs. Todd and Mrs. Sebastian; keep them updated, ask for advice in terms of how to help
send out email to school (must make them do my project...)
figure out display? (this might be a February thing cause I just really dont know)

Reflection #9:

January 27, 2022:

Bisque Firing: Fridays

Glaze Firing: Wednesdays/Thursdays

Other comments: pug mill (not necessary to buy clay), magnetic display board (where to display?), slideshow/paper/video?, need to look for surveys (maybe even just buzzfeed personality tests? what feels good for them to guide them where they want to be?)

Week by Week:

Jan 24 - Jan 28: finalize logistics for classes
Jan 31 - Feb 4: introduce to Ms Todds classes, think about school introduction, talk to Mr Quayle and Mr Turpak

Feb 7 - Feb 10: introduce it to the school,

Feb 14 - Feb 18: after school Friday for rest of school (build/bisque fire)

Feb 21 - Feb 25: after school Friday for rest of school (build/glaze)
Feb 28 - Mar 4:

Mar 7 - Mar 10: make sure everything is glazed (fire over break)

Spring Break (12-28):

Reflection #8:

February 2, 2022: (First Draft)

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).

Reflection #9:

February 4, 2022:

Today I have officially changed my project/product focus. Although it'll likely mean a lot more work than what it initially required, I think I'll be happier this way. I feel like I have a better sense of direction of what I plan to do and what I want to do. I've decided on making 1 piece a day, at a set time, so it'll almost be like an experiment (will develop more of this later). I've been granted access to art stuff if/when needed depending on when I'll be creating my daily pieces. I've also decided on documenting my journalism piece to go along wiht the ceramic piece here in my capstone thing. There'll be daily updates on my 'Today I Feel..' page from day to day to track my progress througout the month. In these documentation pieces, I intend to include some way of explaining how I feel in the moment and then detailing a bit why, potentially digging deeper into why I feel that way and how I could fix it.

To Do list ((hopefully) by Tuesday the 8th):

location of display?
way of displaying?
- art department people?
look into positive psychology
formulate/document story
- timelapse, video, photo, (scrapbook?)

[Countdown to March 10: 35 days]

Reflection #10:

February 16, 2022:

I've been keeping up quite nicely with my project day to day. I genuinely believe that it's been helping in my efforts to just live life as is, for the time being. Of course I don't just completely forget all other responsibilities such as college or the future, but in the time that it takes for me to create these ceramc pieces, I feel like I'm able to relax, even if it is just for a couple of minutes. This day to day reflection has made me realize that I could benefit with some change in my life. A common piece in most of my self relection pieces is that everyday has been, to put it simply, meh. I've decided to do something new everyday just to see what difference it makes, whether it's talking to someone new or eating something new. I think that I'll start including all of these observations into my daily reflections as well.

Reflection #11:

It's weird to think that I've reached the end of capstone and I'm now seeing everything come to a close. It's been a long and hard journey, but I think verythign has paid off in the best possible way. I found out more about myself than I ever thought I would in highschool. I found out more about myself as a person and how to navigate what I feel on a day to day basis. In doing so, I’m able to go about my day with less stress and a better outlook on the day. I’m proud of everything that I’ve accomplished so far with my initial project and then my final project despite the time constraints and the fear that I wouldn't be able to get what I wanted out of the project. Given the time that I had to complete everything, I believe that I excelled in the physical completion of my model. I was scared that not everything would turn out the way that I had planned it in my head, but it turned out so much better than I had planned. I wouldn't say that fell short of this, but I would like to dig further into identity as a whole and how different people navigate it. After giving my presentation, it came to my attention that my project could be a type of therapy, potentially for kids with disabilities that struggle with emotions or words. If I had more time, I would definitely want to look for ways to expand my project into the community for those who are also looking for a way to express themselves in a quiet but personal manner. In the end, I came to the conclusion that sometimes it’s okay to focus on yourself and that not everything needs an immediate impact. In taking time to teach myself more about my ways and emotions, I’m able to better control them as well as help others. In doing so, we’re able to build a stronger and more meaningful community.

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