Digital Collage
Title: Long for Connection
Size: 14.17 x 9.45 cm
September 2016
Size: 14.17 x 9.45 cm
September 2016
Exhibition Test
“Long for Connection” is based on the difficulty of communication for a non-native speaker. The inspiration for this piece was Salvador Dali, because in his paintings he brings random objects together and make them seem as a whole. “Long for Connection” was created based on my values and the limitations that I encounter daily, just like my lack of communication.
The Meaning
I was born in Bogota, Colombia. There I was raised by an amazing woman, who did everything that she could to give my sister and I a better future. During my childhood, I had to face the fact that my mother, sister and I have been living apart from my father, who had been living in the United States. The distant connection that I had with my father had given me a hunger for the English language. Due to this I would spent my days trying to learn how to read, write and ask as many questions as I could. My mother would always encourage me to satisfy my hunger for knowledge, therefore she worked extremely hard to give my sister and I a valuable education.
Suddenly I met my father, this was the time that my life completely changed and that choice was in my hands. I would have to pick between staying in Colombia with my family or to keep thriving for my desire to learn English. However, this was not my choice. In 2011 I took the journey to leave my native country and start a new life, this contrived me to grow up faster and finally satisfy my hunger.
Learning English had come across as fairly simple when I was living in Colombia, but it had turned out to be an extremely difficult language to comprehend once I was surrounded by native speakers. I recognized this when I started in a monolingual English speaking middle school. I began by trying to speak the language, unfortunately my accent was very thick, therefore not a lot of people were able to understand me. This was the hardest part, because I wasn’t able to communicate my thoughts and I didn’t have proper spelling either. At this stage of my life I came to realize that I had to work extremely hard in order to achieve my desires. Fortunately, I was able to get the hang of the pace in which my peers have been speaking.
By the time I started high school, my English had been much improved. However, it was still troubling when it came to speaking and understanding people at a faster pace. Being a high school student, this made it rather difficult for me to communicate with my new peers. As time went by I was able to accept the fact that I wasn’t as literate as other students, this would mean that I had to enforce my learning abilities in order to increase my knowledge and my ability to do better in school.
Until this day I am still trying to be more literate in English, it has not been an easy route, but at least I can say that I have tried. I am thankful for everything and everyone who was able to collaborate on my path to achieve my goal, including my mother, because she was there for me from the beginning and she encouraged me to do everything.
No matter where I am, I will keep pursuing my hunger for knowledge. Not only for my own desire, but also for my future. Being fully literate in English would be one of my most wanted aspirations, therefore I work extremely hard every day in the hope that one day I could be victorious.
Suddenly I met my father, this was the time that my life completely changed and that choice was in my hands. I would have to pick between staying in Colombia with my family or to keep thriving for my desire to learn English. However, this was not my choice. In 2011 I took the journey to leave my native country and start a new life, this contrived me to grow up faster and finally satisfy my hunger.
Learning English had come across as fairly simple when I was living in Colombia, but it had turned out to be an extremely difficult language to comprehend once I was surrounded by native speakers. I recognized this when I started in a monolingual English speaking middle school. I began by trying to speak the language, unfortunately my accent was very thick, therefore not a lot of people were able to understand me. This was the hardest part, because I wasn’t able to communicate my thoughts and I didn’t have proper spelling either. At this stage of my life I came to realize that I had to work extremely hard in order to achieve my desires. Fortunately, I was able to get the hang of the pace in which my peers have been speaking.
By the time I started high school, my English had been much improved. However, it was still troubling when it came to speaking and understanding people at a faster pace. Being a high school student, this made it rather difficult for me to communicate with my new peers. As time went by I was able to accept the fact that I wasn’t as literate as other students, this would mean that I had to enforce my learning abilities in order to increase my knowledge and my ability to do better in school.
Until this day I am still trying to be more literate in English, it has not been an easy route, but at least I can say that I have tried. I am thankful for everything and everyone who was able to collaborate on my path to achieve my goal, including my mother, because she was there for me from the beginning and she encouraged me to do everything.
No matter where I am, I will keep pursuing my hunger for knowledge. Not only for my own desire, but also for my future. Being fully literate in English would be one of my most wanted aspirations, therefore I work extremely hard every day in the hope that one day I could be victorious.
Process and Experimentation
1. Finding ideas and exploring sources
Analyzing what I wanted to do and how it connected to my statement for culture. This is when I started to do research, this way I could start planning and creating ideas on mi mind in order to later find out what I really wanted to do and also find my inspiration.
1. Finding ideas and exploring sources
Analyzing what I wanted to do and how it connected to my statement for culture. This is when I started to do research, this way I could start planning and creating ideas on mi mind in order to later find out what I really wanted to do and also find my inspiration.
2. Finding inspiration
In order to find inspiration, research needed to be done. Therefore I completed a research on an artist that was I wanted to be inspired by. After my research I came to a conclusion that Salvador Dali was going to be the artist that I got inspired from.
In order to find inspiration, research needed to be done. Therefore I completed a research on an artist that was I wanted to be inspired by. After my research I came to a conclusion that Salvador Dali was going to be the artist that I got inspired from.
3. Planning by drawing at least three sketches
After I was done with my research I decided to start bringing my ideas to life by creating sketches. I created four sketches because I was able to come up with many ideas.
After I was done with my research I decided to start bringing my ideas to life by creating sketches. I created four sketches because I was able to come up with many ideas.
4. Take pictures
Before creating any of my ideas in Photoshop, I needed to take pictures. I decided to take different pictures of myself and nature. First I took a picture of myself, including by chest and head. With the background of this photo I was able to take the green colors and the flowers in order to make the green and land on my collage. I took this picture in order to portrait my sketches, because at the point that I took the pictures I was not sure of what idea I wanted to develop. Then I took a picture of my eyes because I wanted to represent them in my collage so that when the viewer looks at my collage one would be able to see the world through my eyes. Finally I took a picture of myself by covering my mouth with my own hand, I did this in order to mimic the form of a hand when covering the mouth of a person. With this I would be able to cover my mouth in my collage in order to symbolize my trouble at communicating properly.
5. Creating my ideas on Photoshop
Now that I had all of the pictures that I needed, I was able to start on my piece. First I had to create a new project and make a new project using Adobe Photoshop. Here I made my piece on a landscape mode and the size 36 x 24 inches. Then I started to upload the pictures that I wanted to use on my digital collage.
Now that I had all of the pictures that I needed, I was able to start on my piece. First I had to create a new project and make a new project using Adobe Photoshop. Here I made my piece on a landscape mode and the size 36 x 24 inches. Then I started to upload the pictures that I wanted to use on my digital collage.
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Process in Photoshop The first thing I did was to open in Photoshop all of the pictures that I was going to use Then I simply chose each part of the picture that i wanted and I feathered the edges and smooth them out too because that way the collage would be more balanced and it would have a better craftsmanship. Finally I was ab;e to put all of the pictures together and resized them in order to make them equally balanced. Then at the end I decided to leave the background (my eyes) with 100% contrast and everything else had less contrast, so that the final piece would have more focus in my eyes. |
Reflection
Long for Connection was a success due to the fact that this was my first time using Photoshop and the finish product looks better than expected. During the process of creating this digital collage it was hard for me because of all the different tools that Photoshop had that I didn't know how to use. By the time that I was almost done with the collage I was able to master three different tools on Photoshop, and this really helped me throughout the whole process. One thing that I would change if I were to do this collage again, would be to learn more about Photoshop before starting to work with it, this would of been extremely helpful in order to have achieved better results. Overall I am pleased with my collage because it transmits the message that I wanted to share and it has the meaning of communication and how all of us around the world use it, but we don't think about it until it is uncommon or we learn a new language. This piece helped me express my thoughts of how society deals with communication and how I feel about it. Long for Connection has a very deep meaning that we do not think about on the daily basis.
ACT Questions
1. Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause-effect relationships between your inspiration and its effect upon your artwork.
Long for Connection was inspired by the work of Salvador Dali, The persistence of Memory, which demonstrates that time is not everything in the world, and that once in a while we should stop and think about things that we don't think about regularly. This is the message that inspired me to create my piece, so that people could stop and think about communication and then also make them see all of the problems around the world that are caused by poor communication.
2. What is the overall approach (point of view) the author (from your research) has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
The author of my research talks specifically about the Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali. Here the author talks about the technique that Dali was trying to accomplish on this piece and what the whole piece means to him.
3. What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, cultures, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
Throughout my research I found that there are multiple ideas of what this piece really means, there are many different cultural ideas, but the idea that got my attention the most was that according to K Shabi, "Some art scholars believe that Dali's melting clocks may symbolize Albert Einstein's groundbreaking Theory of Relativity". This was really surprising to me because I have never thought about it that way.
4. What was the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?
The theme that I focused on was communication. I wanted to portray communication in a way that not a lot of people look at it, therefore my research was all about the meanings of communication, just like Dali was trying to communicate his meaning on The Persistence of Memory.
5) What kind of inferences (conclusions reached on the basis of evidence and reasoning) did you make while reading your research?
The inferences that I made while doing my research were that Dali is an artist who painted his dreams like photographs, and that is what let him create so many amazing and original pieces. Also that there are so many different meaning to one piece, that sometimes is extremely hard to come to a conclusion of what the piece really means.
Citations
MoMA Learning." MoMA. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Sept. 2016.
K Shabi. "Salvador Dali Persistence of Memory: Meaning of the Melting Clocks." Salvador Dali Persistence of Memory: Meaning of the Melting Clocks. N.p., 29 May 2013. Web. 10 Sept. 2016.