The objects I chose to represent something about myself are a snake plant, a beeswax candle in a wooden holder, a tiny book called Quotable Women, a crystal ball, and a giant dead beetle that I named Beeble.
I included the beeswax candle and wooden candlestick because, no matter how awful I feel, candles have always been a source of comfort. As a little girl, I used to hope for power outages during storms just so we could light the whole house with candles. I was raised by my grandma in my early years, and Iāve never met anyone with more or bigger candles than she had. She used to let me play with the wax, light things on fire, and just be a kid. As an adult, candles still bring me peace. The second it gets dark, I light every candle in the room, put on cozy classical music, and read whatever book Iām enjoying in that moment.
The Quotable Women book reflects how passionate I am about womenās rights. I grew up in the Mormon church and had a lot of negative experiences with misogyny. One of my favorite quotes from the book that really speaks to that experience is: āIn passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid blame on the woman.ā Nancy Astor (1897 to 1964).
The crystal ball represents my spiritual side. I donāt believe thereās any way to know what happens when we die, so Iāve decided to believe in the things that feel right and bring joy. I like to think everything has a spirit: trees, animals, rivers, and even rocks and crystals. There may not be scientific proof, but Iāve realized I donāt need that. If I believe it, that makes it real to me, and thatās good enough.
I chose the snake plant simply because I couldnāt use my giant snake for a still life drawing. So instead, the plant represents my beloved ball python. And finally, I chose āBeebleā, my giant dead beetle, because he represents the many strange little things that make me who I am. My fiancĆ© gave him to me while we were on a field study in Panama. He could have picked me flowers, but he knew Iād be much more excited about a dead beetle. Iāve always loved the unloved things: bugs, snakes, mud, and Iād even choose rain over sunshine.
Drawing has never been something Iāve felt naturally confident in, so I found this assignment quite challenging. I really enjoyed creating the outline and found the process of drawing the lines surprisingly satisfying, but I struggled with the shading. I kept smudging parts of the drawing by accident, and I often forgot to be mindful of the type of texture I was trying to create. Sometimes I would shade in a way that didnāt match the object, and it was hard to fix once it became too dark. Next time, I think I would choose objects that arenāt quite as dark, just to make the shading process more manageable. I also found drawing from direct observation more difficult than expected. Translating colour into black and grey forced me to think more carefully about value. I had to spend time figuring out how light or dark a colour would look in grayscale, which made the whole process more complex than I thought it would be.
I really appreciated Diane Victorās work and the process behind her smoke drawings. Thereās something so haunting and beautiful about the way the smoke creates a ghost-like effect. I find it fascinating how she uses something as fleeting as smoke, something that usually disappears in seconds and turns it into a permanent piece of art. I also really connected with the way she talks about the fragility of smoke as a medium and how that reflects the fragile nature of the subject matter in her work. The idea of capturing something so delicate and making it last feels really powerful.