Giving Back to My Community

In December of 2018, I went to a community Christmas party on the South-Side of Chicago. I wrapped kids for children and families who were coming to the party from the neighborhood. There were a lot of children there who were happy to receive all kinds of books and toys. My favorite part about being there was talking to different kids and watching them sing along to different Christmas carols a band came in to play. There was also food and a number of games that the children could enjoy.

Going into my first community service experiences, I was a little nervous but it felt really good to watch everyone enjoy themselves while giving back to my community.

How To: Manifest Your Dreams

The last AP for my Endurance class was focused around creating a survival guide for yourself that will guide you through completing your mission. In this class, I've been trying to define what my true mission in life is. Starting a mission is just as hard as finishing one, and on top of everything I don't exactly know what my real dream in life is yet. Working on this AP gave me a better direction of where to start with my mission. First, I thought of people that I look up to that have inspired my mission. I then created a map and timeline of my accomplishments through life that got me where I am today.  The map is more of what my life will be like in the future. It will guide me when I get stuck or hit a roadblock. It will also remind me of what I'm working hard for. 

Although many of these Action Projects were difficult for me, it really helped me think about what I want to do with my life when I'm finally done with school and I have a degree. A lot of people don't know where to head next and they feel stuck. This assignment helped me plan ahead. I also learned about myself more and how I process experiences that have led me to be the person I am today. This AP took a lot of brain strength for me because I really sat down and got to know myself more as a person and where I see my future heading. In conclusion, I believe that my confidence will help me survive as an artist because even if things are going terrible, at least I can tell myself that I will be okay at the end of it all.

Citations:

“About Us.” Support Black Art, www.supportblackart.com/about.

Dazed. “Art Hoe Collective.” Dazed, 8 Feb. 2016, 

www.dazeddigital.com/projects/article/29584/1/art-hoe-collective.

Galerie Myrtis, galeriemyrtis.net/about/.

“Shape The Future of Black Art.” Black Art Futures Fund, www.blackartfutures.org/.

Finding Meaning in 12 Hours

In this unit I was able to bring my mission and vision to life through art. Although this AP was very challenging for me, it proved that I have strength, creativity, and the drive to chase after what I really want. I was given only 12 hours to work towards a mission that I have. The main mission that I’ve been thinking about since this term started is exploring home, life, and love through random objects and concepts. Every hour that goes by brings me closer to my mission. I learned that the mission and vision are two different things. A mission is a road you travel on to get to your vision. You may hit some speed bumps or get a flat tire, but you ultimately want to reach the end of the road. At the end of the road is your vision. Your vision is the tressure and rainbow waiting for you.

This course taught me that I can have several missions and visions, as long as I work towards it with hard work and effort. For 12 hours, I looked for used objects around my neighborhood that I could paint or collage. While I’m also exploring the theme of youth in my work, I thought it would be cool to paint a baby rocking chair that I found in an alleyway. The idea is that I can find some kind of sanctuary in these items even if they’ve been used thousands of times. I can make an object something of my own. At the end of the 12 hours I had a beautiful baby blue chair filled with images of my favorite movies, comics, etc. As I was working on this chair, I built a strong connection with it. I connected this to the relationship Laura Dekker had with her boat. Laura Dekker is the youngest person to sail across the world. When we watched her documentary in class, I was very inspired because it not only showed me that I can find peace in non-living things, but it showed me that I can literally do anything I put my mind to even if it sounds crazy to other people.

Since my video can not be put here due to technical difficulties, below are photos I took throughout my 12 hours to document the evolution of my chair.

Finding it for the first time

First attempt at painting it

After Spraypainting and Priming it

Added Collage

Final Piece

I Remember The Day I Was Born: Endurance

Endurance is the power our bodies, minds, and souls have to get through difficult situations without giving up. Through this course, I am facing my own challenges that I have endured throughout my life. I am also learning about important figures throughout history who have endured traumatic experiences themselves. Their stories have inspired me to write about my life and what I have endured both physically and mentally. Through this action project, I learned a lot about how my challenges can shape my future and mission as an artist. It made me think, what do I really want to do with my life and why? I have encountered memories I haven't thought about in a while and that pushed me to finish the first chapter of my biography.

In class, we've been reading Night by Elie Wiesel. Elie Wiesel's biography uncovers the horrors he has seen and dealt with while being in a concentration camp with his father. Throughout the book, he overcomes several hardships. Reading this book has made me realize that everyone has a goal in life, and everyone struggles just to reach that goal.

On the front cover of my biography is a photo of me as a little kid and a photo of my mother. My mother is supposed to be the grown-up me. She has also been through a lot but has pushed through it all. Her story inspired me to make up my own and think about my future.

FP- How can you rewrite history?

I'm representing my Equality class taught by Sharon Holmes for Final Presentations. In Equality, we've discussed rewriting history and how that's different for all of us. Rewriting history is different for different people because of we all of different backgrounds and events in our life that have impacted who we are today. This can relate to your class, gender, and race making you who you are in the eyes of society.


I wanted to create a screenplay that shows the conversation between a teacher teaching social studies to a predominately white class, and how that is effecting a black student's education and family. This is just a draft, I'm planning to have the students or the black student create their own assignment that connects to their own history and background more.

 I AM rewriting history by writing this screenplay because I created a story of experiences that I've gone through in my life, and the characters look like me and represent who I am. Andrea is a character marking her own history and background. She discovers ways to communicate that through this project her teacher gave her. In a way, she rebels from what is expected of her.

Time Capsule: Medication To Cure Trauma

Equality is a class where students can speak about their own experiences with race, gender, and class. We've talked about black history to first, second, and third-class feminism. Throughout this class, I've found it easier and easier to connect the history I've learned in class to my own. Most of what we study has to do with my personal identity and it has made me see what equality really is and what it stands for. In the first term, we discussed the differences between "fake news" and "real news". That lesson reminds me of the AP that I completed for this term because I made up my own news story which is neither real or fake, but a race and class story on a new medical drug. In this AP, I was able to create something I believe in and speak about it as if it was real. I like that the news article we write about has to take place in 100 years because I was more imaginative of what the future may look like, especially with new medications and laws. The Time Capsule is supposed to show what will happen in the future through four different artifacts. My artifacts are the newspaper itself, a book written by someone who took the medication, the pill bottle, and a protest sign.

Time Capsule 2020

Business Plan: Thrift-A-Truck

Social Entrepreneurship has shown me how to create my own business and how I would present my ideas to investors. Throughout the class, we have discussed what makes a great business. A great business has a plan, a mission, and a vision along with highlighting the target audiences and budgets. The main kind of businesses that we talked about in class were non-profits who use their gains for the greater good. There are also companies that use their business to make money and to improve their own business. Here, I am focusing on a social business called Thrift-A-Truck that works towards helping low-income families and people around the Chicagoland area. It's basically a thrift store on wheels that travels through different Chicago neighborhoods. I chose to create this business because since I was a kid, I've always loved antique shops and consignment stores. I live a little outside Chicago so I'm not as close to the stores I'd like to shop at. Thrift-A-Truck is really made to benefit people who are tired of traveling long distances just to shop at resale stores. I want to make thrifting fun and easy for my community.

I found this Action Project really challenging because I had to think outside the box, and I've never thought of making my own business. It took a lot of work to research evidence that can back up my claims. I really liked that I'm able to make a change through fashion and this is a head start if I actually wanted to pitch this to investors, which is exciting to me.

VIA @NicoleMclaughlin on Instagram, Patagonia Skirt.
Nicole is a designer who reuses clothes to design new clothes.
She has made a suitcase of sneakers, bras out of Nike socks,
shoes out of tennis balls, and so much more.

To see my calculations in detail: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14XcL-UKYgh_44HJIeR6OI-5wd2s-SutUejnYdpx0lww/edit?usp=sharing

Citations:

“Industry Market Research, Reports, and Statistics.” IBISWorld, www.ibisworld.com/united-states/market-research-reports/thrift-stores-industry/.

“The Largest Online Consignment & Thrift Store®.” ThredUP, www.thredup.com/.

Write Your Business Plan, www.sba.gov/business-guide/plan-your-business/write-your-business-plan.