Spirit Animal: Spider
For my first prompt, I decided that my spirit animal would be the spider. In the past few months, my mental health has improved due to help from my therapist, family, friends, and dog (Addison). On difficult days I remind myself that I must practice patience; with time things will get better, but I must be receptive to change. The spider reinforces my belief that I must keep trying every day and never give up on life; no matter how difficult it can be. I am the weaver of my own fate!
“Common meaning for the spider spirit animal or totem are Patience, Receptivity, Feminine energy, Creativity, Weaver of life’s fate, shadow self, dark aspects of life or personality” (spiritanimal.info).
Nightmare: The current political division in the United States.
For a while, I have been experiencing increased levels of anxiety due to the political division in the United States. I am worried that those close to me might be harmed due to the increased political and racial discord in the United States. The storming of the Capitol on January 6th left me feeling fearful and angry. I was fearful that evil and hatred might prevail and that the end of democracy in the United States was coming. I was angry that the terrorist/insurrectionist/rioters were able to get into the capital with capitol police doing little to stop them; it showed the privilege that a certain group of people has in the United States.
This prompt was a bit challenging for me as I did not know what to do, but I enjoyed creating art while being out in nature.
The materials I found were found on the ground of my apartment complex, and I repurposed the flowers I got for Valentine’s Day as they were wilting.
At first, I wanted to do some type of spiral in my artwork as I was inspired by Andy Goldsworthy, but my artwork morphed into its own unique existence. The spiral turned into a triangle, so to keep a more round shape I used sticks to push the edges. I added more sticks to make sure that the support sticks would stay in place. Then, I used a straw to put in between the sticks for more support. On top of the straw, I put broken tree bark, flowers, and pinecones.
I kept similar colors/materials together, but I tried to make an organic separation. In the first photo, I took the top is more green and alive while the bottom is the opposite by using more browns and dead flowers.
•Project 4 was the prompts project. Prompts were given to us at the beginning of class for 10-15 minutes. The prompts directed us to create art that did not have to be perfect. . When creating these prompts, I did not focus on making sure every space on the picture plane was proportional or focus on unnoticeable detail. I did notice that as we did more prompts, I would continue to spend more time than was needed on them. I became more judgmental of my artwork as the more prompts we had. Now looking back at the different prompts, each one related to the project we were doing. I did not notice at that time that the prompts that were given to us made us practice a certain topic in our projects. I do see a pattern of my frustration increasing when doing the prompt and not understand how to complete Project 2 correctly. •One of my favorite prompts during the semester was creating a monster and creating their mother, father, 1st High School Dance, and them as a hero. This prompt was my favorite to do as I was able to see my other classmate’s monster go to their 1st Highschool Dance, which I found extremely humorous. My least favorite prompt was the prompt that instructed us to create a two-point perspective room, and this prompt specifically really frustrated me as I did not understand how to draw in two-point perspective even when trying previously.