Semester Reflections

Semester 4

I think a theme in my ePortfolio is that my evolution of what defines art stems from things I can do with my friends and enjoy with groups of people. It gave me a chance to reflect how those moments were impactful in my life and how art influenced it. My favorite examples are from the TRYathalons, a snow day I spent with my roommates making snowmen this semester and the silent disco I went to with new found friends at Next Now Fest my freshman fall semester.

The panel we had with artistic professionals was very cool and showed me that you can bring art into your work. My favorite field trip was watching the performance of Food for the Gods by Nehprii Amenii at the Clarice. It was a very moving performance that focused on the struggles of black people in the United States. The performance was striking because the audience moved around within the clarice and there was different scenes we were guided to that were varying levels of strange that reflected this country.

My capstone project came from a place of questioning stereotypes (specifically that gen Z spends all their time on electronics indoors). I did not learn how to sew from arts scholars, but I did learn how to create meaning behind what I sew and use my peer’s feedback to add a deeper level of understanding to my audience.

I have been able to look at art galleries and appreciate the curation of the works and the message the artist is trying to convey. I used to get really bored at art galleries because I couldn’t understand the abstract messaging and didn’t know there was a hidden world of curation behind the gallery. I think it has allowed me to better understand societies, because I have been able to go to galleries in different parts of the world and see how the perspectives differ.

I think the biggest example of collaborating effectively with those holding diverse artistic perspectives, interests, and abilities was the Vogeing lesson my first semester. I am really bad at dancing, but I still had the opportunity to try (and fail). More importantly, I got to see some of my peers demonstrate their talents and cheer them on with my other classmates who are also not great at dancing. It definitely showed me that everyone is different in their artistic abilities and there are multiple different definitions of art.

I don’t really write in my major classes right now, because they are mostly math. I think that my writing and critical analysis skills from arts scholars will translate well in my junior and senior year when I have to do more writing and analysis of things related to my career as a fire protection engineer.