Five Hundred Twenty-Five Thousand Six Hundred Minutes

         Historically, culturally, and traditionally the yearbook has come to be the showcase for who we are as we develop through our school years. Every page of a yearbook contains a memory-- more often than not a memory that is not your own, or that now eludes you.  I was intrigued at the importance of memory as self-identity, and through the exploration of my past yearbooks began to find that who we are stems from what we do; I am the person I am today because of all my memories that stem from my activities throughout my life. I have never enjoyed being placed into a box as a “theatre kid”, yet the pages of my yearbooks place a spotlight on only that aspect of my identity. I wanted a forum to explore the duality of interests and the duality of identity. I decided to present memories as self-identity through not only myself, but also through my two close friends Kevin Scarlett and Morgan Williams. The three of us are theatre majors here at Rollins, but we also have other interests, memories, and identities that have no relation to the stage.
        I selected the 2004 Tomokan (the last yearbook published for Rollins) to be the casing for my project. I enjoyed the collective memory that surrounds a yearbook, and thought the pre-printed pages of a class past would render more familiarity between the identities my friends and I ascribe to ourselves, to those of alum past. I then heightened the interactive nature of the yearbook by including pieces of script, academia, or sheet music as they applied to the memory and identity of the subject of focus on the page. 
       I selected the method of tape transfer to be my main method for presenting the photograph because I thought it visually depicted the flow of memory and the images that can be evoked, it also allowed for the images to be apart of the pages rather than sit atop them. The tape method was particularly effective where other types of memory were addressed on the page, as in: Kevin’s swimming page, where the sense memory of chlorine and water evoked the feeling of being underwater, as well as the muscle memory of swimming and diving; and in Morgan’s sorority page, wherein she recollects the many events that occurred associated with Mayflower Hall and the collective memory of sisters before her. In all of the aforementioned examples, memory played a significant part of the facet of the individual depicted; and also allowed for the recognition of identity through occurrences or images.

Final Stages (pun intended)

http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~kihlstrm/SelfIdentityMemory.htm

I have pretty mcuh finished up the ptoject. I'm just in search of a good quote to inspire me in my artist statement. I've done some outside research on memory as self identity, and the above article had an interesting thoughts about self identity as an intricate part of status....I had never though that far into it.

Have a great break everyone! I can't wait to see everyone's projects!

Fin.

I love my Mayflower person to pieces. I will lead with that. But I could not be more content that her portion of the class is done. We met on Saturday (for when ended up being 5 hours long) to further discuss her presentation...and she just has no idea what she wants. Still. And then decided to hand me about 10 more pictures she wanted in the book, so I ended up doing about four more page entries on Sunday. Like I said, love Fran to pieces...but I don't typically do the whole procrastination thing, so that was a little off-putting. All in all, good experience though. I'm excited to see our presentations tomorrow!

Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming

I am still plugging along on my photobook. I have made a lot of progress (plus side) but am nowhere near down (downside).

Most of the ideas I had for my book in terms of layout and such actually worked out marvelously, so that was exciting. My photobook is now interactive, as I managed to find playbills, and script sections of the shows I am conveying memory/identity of Morgan Williams and Kevin Scarlett through. And as I was working on it this weekend a strange revelation came to me: Here I am creating this book about memory as self identity, and as part of that identify as an actor (I learned the term is no longer gendered), which in its essence requires that I take the identity of others and portray them. Kind of mind boggling....

Photobook

I am having a quarter-life crisis in attempting to construct my photobook on self-identity. I am overly involved on campus, and as I start to examine what activities I do that "define" me I start to feel like some of the other things I am involved in are rather futile and if they don't define me, then why do I do them?

Then I started thinking about the things we forget. There are tons of "significant" moments in my life that have lead to what defines me, and I honestly do not remember them. My first lead-role in a show? Complete blur. My first time in a courtroom? Couldn't tell ya. I don't know if these things are due to the adrenaline overdose that is performance, but I just feel like, if its apart of who I am, shouldn't those memories be cherished and in some black-box part of my mind?

IMAGE OVEROAD

I have spent this entire weekend scouring for the images I am going to use for my book, as well as mourning the loss of my sim card that had the photos I had already taken for my book a week ago. So, it seems another photoshoot is in order. Joyous.
I feel like a super-stalker because I spent hours on facebook searching for the images I need, and all in all it has proved less than calming to track them down.
I plan on coming to class tomorrow with the materials and pieces I am going to use in my book, and planning exactly the methods/assembly I will use. But for the most part my selection of photos is done (hopefully thats the easy part).

Tomokan

Firstly, a question: Is it "tomOkan" or "Tom-ah-kin" (like the Native American tool thing??)

     Now description: In lieu of my typical innate response to do it all, and the likelihood I would freak out and be less than successful, I have re-thought this assignment (shocking I am sure).
     I am now doing a photo book on memory as self identity, and I will focus on some of my memories and how they have been integrated into my self identity- but I didn't want to limit myself to the theatre major box, so I am not. I am exploring all the different identities, activities, and values I have (as an actor, musician, and "lawyer") . I will do pages on myself and what I think defines me, as well as a few pages on two of my close friends from theatre, and show how the way someone is "presented" in a play, or in a yearbook, is not all there is to them. I am going to be presenting this in somewhat of a year-book essence, as my friend Kevin is an athlete, as well as psychology major, and my other friend Morgan is an art history major as well as theater, and is also in a sorority. Not going to lie...I'm pretty stoked for this now.

Namaste.