Xerox Project

For my project I was portraying the feeling of trying to break through struggles I have encountered throughout my life. When you fall through a frozen lake or ocean, resurfacing is difficult, especially when the hole you fell through originally cannot be found. My face and hands in the center of the collage represents the constant pushing and fighting I have to do to accomplish my goals against the solid, clear surface. As much as I try, mistakes are continuously being made. All of my features surrounding the center face and hands create a rippling effect that water creates when a rock is thrown into it. The rippling of water represents the motion of life and how, even if I need to stop, hopefully I can get back into the current to continue living and enjoying myself while learning. A crack starting at the top left corner extends to the left hand in the center. This crack shows that there is always a way to solve a problem or exceed expectations, with just a little hard work and dedication, the crack can be broken and I can resurface again.

Grid Art

I created my grid art based on the greatest inspiration in my life, Sassyfrass. This cougar has enriched my life, showing me how to forgive and love the simple things. Spending time trying to recreate his handsome face was an absolute pleasure. Featured is the photograph I used to create my grid art. This grid certainly does not do his wonderful face and teeth justice, but his goofiness is definitely perceived.

Video Games

As a child I was involved with many sports starting at the age of two. Playing video games and watching the television were not a priority and I never had much time. Although, when my family and I would travel across the country in our RV, my siblings' and my favorite game, other than looking out the window for punch buggy cars, was to play our Sega Genesis console. Our favorite games included: Sonic the Hedgehog, Aladdin, The Lion King, and a tennis game. I can still remember the video game music and its ability to create suspense at specific points. I also love when different sounds are used to emphasis certain characters and events within the game. Growing up as the youngest of five, I learned how to play a variety of video games, but all of these started out on our old desktop PC computer. I had a game that consisted of this elaborate baking console that connected to the keyboard. You could practice rolling dough, mixing, and using different baking ingredients. The console was connected to the computer, therefore, if you performed the wrong step, the batter would turn out incorrectly. My brother Chris, sister Katie and me would go to our cousins house and we would play Mario Party together, enjoying every minute of spending time together. Mario Party was and still is my all time favorite video game. The duels and the adventures that game lets the gamer experience amongst other players sitting next to them was an ingenious idea. As I got older, my family loved Guitar Hero. My other sisters Anna and Heather, Katie, Chris and I would battle each other. Our mom even played with us. I enjoyed pretending to be a rock star who could actually play music. Guitar Hero is actually where I learned about music, exposing me to my favorite songs and bands. One game that my brother and I loved and would always play together is Gears of War. My brother and I would play for several days, hours on end until we defeated all the levels. Sometimes we would get frustrated with each other, but my brother appreciated having someone in the family who would play games with him and didn't mind wasting the day away. These moments I shared with my family are priceless and irreversible, thanks to video games.

Flip Book Animation

My animations represent certain aspects of my life that have helped define me as a person. I start out with the love of my life, Terk. She was an eleven year old bearded dragon when she passed away in February 2015. I have put my heart and soul into her health and her beauty was extremely hard to capture on paper. She fades into a sunset, which represents her ability to brighten my life, even though she is gone. Spaceships have always fascinated me and the thought of being able to explore and travel is thrilling. The book moves into a green bouncy ball. I collected bouncy balls when I was a kid. I would bowl every week and I would collect change to ensure a new bouncy ball of all different colors. My brother and I bonded while playing games with each other because he would teach me all of the new tricks, whether they were video games, board games, or outside activities. Next, orcas are magnificent and I am infatuated with their ways of communicating and living as the top predators in the ocean. I listen to Christmas music year round, it brings me true joy and happiness-I am able to bring smiles to people's faces with kind cards just to wish them a happy life and a great thank you for their friendship. My favorite nintendo character is Toad, so I made a small mushroom cap to represent one of my favorite games when I was a child. I end the book with a calculus problem. Calculus is my favorite subject. I thoroughly enjoy learning the material and I never have stress while doing my homework.

Hearing to Eyesight

Much of my peace of mind comes from listening to music. Using Pandora allows me to look up any of my favorite songs and create a station out of them. Pandora radio exposes me to new songs that I thoroughly enjoy, and are now my favorites. I particularly enjoy the 50s, 60s, and 70s radios. I correlate many events in my life with certain songs, that, without Pandora, I would have never heard. The website www.otr.com provides access to radio channels that were the only form of entertainment before the television was invented. I listened to a comedy, Fibber McGee and Molly that was five minutes and eleven seconds. This comedy was light hearted and enjoyable to hear. The music involved with the show reminds me of the original Little Rascals soundtrack that I adore greatly. I also really enjoyed imagining the characters through descriptive words. I was able to picture where the characters were, what they looked like, and how they interacted through my own perspective and imagination. What I love most about "I Love Lucy" is the show's ability to make me smile the entire time. I have been watching the show since I was kid, along with "I Dream of Jeannie" and "Matlock". After watching these original television broadcasts, you can see the correlation with newer television series. These new series were based off of the original ideas for comedy, mystery, and drama. Lucille Ball's facial expressions and her actions make the show fantastic. I remember the episode where they were squishing grapes with their feet to make wine and her face as she entered the huge wooden tub was priceless. I enjoy looking back and appreciating the different forms of media that have been innovated and expanded, especially the black and white shows that have been edited and brought back to life in color (although, the original black and white is always truly the best).

Opera

The Birth and Life of Opera was very insightful. I thoroughly enjoyed traveling with the speaker through different locations observing and appreciating the advancements in civilization through a visual art. Overall, I learned quite a bit and I am looking forward to see how opera has transformed society's entertainment. I watched the opera,Tosca and I was thoroughly impressed with the orchestration. The use of sounds to categorize characters showed us who were villains and who were the common folk. This opera was overall enjoyable, even though the subjects, murder, torture, and suicide were used to create suspension and dramatize the situations being portrayed. What makes Tosca interesting is because this opera was made to define the perspectives of the year 1800, from the year 1895. Nowadays we portray the past much differently than the way the past was perceived over two-hundred years ago. I enjoyed learning more about the history and the challenge of deciphering the overall meaning, or moral of the opera. Tosca is an opera that bases itself on events that occurred prior involving war and iconic villains, in this case Napoleon. Watching an opera is something I have never experienced, and I am glad to have chosen Tosca as my first, especially for its incorporation of music to define characters.

Pjotr Sapegin's Madama Butterfly Reflection

The depiction of the opera was on cue with the actual ideas of the show. The most symbolic part was the umbilical cord that attached Madama Butterfly with her baby. This incorporation represented the bondage the child and mother had, but also, it showed the bondage of Madama Butterfly to Captain Pinkerton. The endless waiting for hope of return of the captain was emphasized by portraying Madama in the same clothes, in the same location, looking towards the same area of the ocean. Although she had a child to bond to, she still waited for the man who promised her his return. This comical short of the opera represented the depression of Madama Butterfly, while also portraying her endless hope, which makes the short quite wonderful.