I first showed interest in art when I was in head-start, at the age of 4. We were always given free time and I always opted for painting or drawing. As I got older, this hobby continued and it was a fun and relaxing way to express myself. In highschool, alone,  I took art foundations, 2 years of ceramics, and piano. From these classes, I've learned that I still enjoy all these forms of art. I like making clay sculptures and paintings for room decor but I also like playing melodies on a piano. These forms of art gave me the skill of being able to plan and organize an idea, as well as flourishing my creativity. It taught me patience as well - when at times my project wasn't going my way, it all worked out at the end.

For my "Too Much" project, I started by choose the topic discrimmination. From there, I drew what I envisioned for this project. I then started, the piece itself, by making the faces out of molds and creating a base with newspaper. After creating the base, I rolled out slabs to then cover the newspaper base and then attach the faces onto the head.  From here, I had two separate bases which I attached with another slab that I blended into both the heads to connect. Once the foundation of my project was done and attached, I started to make lots of coils, in all lengths and sizes, and began to attach them to the slab, connecting the two heads, to add flesh like texture. When I got it to look as I wanted, I began to smooth it out and let it dry - to prepare it for the firing process. Once fired, I chose a dark brown color and a pale tan color, to represent two different races. Colored each head/body one of the colors and in the center where the two heads meet, I blended the two colors using a sponge. Once the coloring process was done, it was fired once more where I then added my final touches. I bought two blonde hair extensions to put on the pale head, a hair scarf for the dark head, and lashes to but on both of the eyes. I last minute put on flowers and leaves all around the piece as well.

In this piece I wanted the main focal point to be on the racism we continue to face even decades after countless civic rights movements. I chose this topic because seeing videos of people hating on each other purely because of their ethnicity, race, nationality, or origins, has given me a constant reminder that racism is still present. Looking at the news, claiming several black people “committed suicide” on trees out in the public when have no history of depression, knowing the truth – lynchings were at play here. Being in fear because of the race you were born with, shouldn’t have to be a struggle we face today. In the creation of my piece, I want people to see that regardless of color, we depend on each, we flourish off one another, and we were made from the same flesh and blood as everyone else. I represent this in my piece by connecting the heads of two people from a different race – symbolizing that we are human, and we need each other; in one way or another, we are connected. The rope around the neck symbolizes the struggles and fear I talked about when it comes to the lynchings – getting held back. Looking at the surface and stereotypes associated with a certain race is nothing but ignorance and only a way of hatred.  The pigments in our skins were nothing more than just natural selection to build resistance to the conditions of our climate. We stem from a root of black ancestors, regardless of your race, they are our origins. We are all only human at the end of the day.    

If I were to redo the process of this project over again, I would start off by under glazing instead of over glazing because I would have preferred my project to have been matte. Along with the glazing process, I would have better glazed because it ended up being a bit splotchy and having lighter patches all over it. I would also like to add hair onto the brown girl in my project to show more diversity and show the beauty in natural black hair. Lastly, I wish I would've made the bodies look a bit more feminine, like adding the upper part of the chest, to represent more femininity, as well as use different lashes for the eyes. All and all, I was happy with my piece, regardless of the flaws.