Last Thursday, we were given a task to experiment with composing
5 objects we brought from home, as well as items Charlotte had brought in for
us to use i.e. paper clips, post-it notes, pencils etc.
I didn’t really think about what I was composing but I knew I
wanted to started from the corner and let the composition ‘grow’, after some
tweaking and re-arranging I realised that this composition was a very strong
reflection of me, my mind and my view on my life in recent times.
When everyone was finished composing we all looked at and
discussed each others and found there was a sense of personality and an
individual way of thinking and creating in everyone’s composition. Even though
I found mine to be personal to me more than a reflection on how I work, I have
realised that everything I create is always personal to me or something that is
important to me. When creating a physical work, I like to work from the outside
in, which shows from when I started working from the corners in this picture.
While looking at my composition, keywords were thrown out and
there were a few that really stuck out to me: Frantic, placed, danger. I found
it interesting that ‘placed’ was suggested between frantic and danger because
even though I placed everything carefully down so that nothing would fall or
move, I found the only objects to be purposely placed were the post-it notes
and hand gel. As you can see, they are separated from everything and not
connected to anything, for me this was a representation of myself. A feeling of
vulnerability but also safety as it is separated from everything but cannot be
harmed. The charger and lead, water bottle, and vaseline were a representation
of my life, symbols for things that keep me alive, things I rely on, (the
charger and lead – to stay connected and attached to people, the water bottle –
health, vaseline – cleanliness, looking after myself), the paper clips being
attached to the lead and clip is a representation that these are things I never
want to let go of or lose. The pencils are the major thoughts and situations
that invade my mind, even the green folder attachments represent the loose ends
that are in the back of my mind but are still clear to me.
It’s honestly really scary to me how much the composition told
me about myself because during the creative process, it was all subconscious
and once I stopped and had a really good look at what I had been doing, it was
only then I saw how much it related back to me. This task felt was very
therapeutic and has actually helped me understand myself better surprisingly.
