When I first thought about something I can consistently observe and present through a specific medium, I ultimately thought about myself. Within all the chaos of my existence, my mind and feelings are the only things that I can single out sometimes. Regardless of how far I may seem from my reality, being able to internalize where I am emotionally and what expression that leads me to portray is the closest I am able to get to myself. Working on this series over time truly allowed me to conceptualize my feelings, give them a purpose, and the existence of their own. Seeing them outside of myself, allowed me to finally understand more about myself and how I conceptualize my mind. Finding physical mediums to represent feelings or any non-physical element, creates deeper more thoughtful choices behind what you use and how you use them. Thin lines will represent my sadness and anxiety, easily breakable, triggered, vulnerability. Thick lines of oil pastels will represent dark moments and heavier feelings such as sadness or states of depression. Materials such as watercolor represent distractions or feelings that are temporary. The physical burning in a few of my pieces represents pain "burning sensations" and Experimenting with how I can use lines and texture through various mediums to create physical forms of emotion and sensations. Just as feelings do, the way all of my lines form on the paper comes naturally. True forms of portraiture are connected in various ways to their subject at most. Finding ways to turn those emotional connections into physically represented ones creates strength within the series. In response to "Michel de Certeau “The Practice of Everyday Life: Walking in the City” pdf (pg 99 - 110)" Finding organic qualities in everyday life is one of the truest forms of art. Observation is the key to creating pieces that are representative of human nature, when that is done clearer connections between your life and other beings of life are made. When Michel de Certeau observes methods of walking through the city he is making connections beyond just how different groups like tourists, local new yorkers, and even birds make their way around. "style specifies a linguistic structure that manifests on the symbolic level....an individual's fundamental way of being in the world" When analyzing the way people are walking, Certeau is making deeper connections to how specific structures like walking can be symbolic of an abundance of characteristics. Applying the idea that when the structure is taken away from such "urbanistic systems" they can be seen in a less rigid light. Such connections as travel and communication can be seen as " a coincidence that reinforces the parallelism between linguistic and pedestrian enunciation" when the rigid structure of both are conceived differently. When thinking about my line portraits, in particular, this idea that my feelings can be conceived as these less rigid parts of my existence helped me to translate them to mediums that existed outside of my mind. Observing myself differently while working on these pieces allowed me to separate different areas of particular feelings to portray them.
