Collage Project

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In my collage, I incorporated pop culture pictures from my favorite magazines that describe who I am as a person. I included my sense of fashion, political views, hobbies that I enjoy, goals that I would like to pursue, and commitments that I have in place for myself. I also included role models that help contribute to my personal growth as a man: Barack Obama, first African-American president, Martin Luther King, father of Civil Rights activism, Hill Harper, actor and graduate of Harvard Law School, and Terrance Howard, actor and author of many nationally renowned, personal growth books for men. Through my collage, I illustrated the culture that has surrounded me my entire life. As a little boy, my grandfather and I always went fishing in the nearby lake as well as golfing with his dearest friends; a ritual that I will always cherish. Although I am a fan of many genres of music, rhythm and blues has transformed the way I connect my soul to the music that I listen to. Marvin Gay and James Brown, two of which that are included in my collage, have been my all time favorite singers and performers growing up. Even though music has a place in my life, I have never had the talent to imitate the musicians that I idolize. Living in Nashville my entire life and attending Belmont has exposed me to different phases and capacities of music, but I never found a home in it.


Since I was a little boy, my mother always taught me to be a leader, to stay focused, and to stay motivated when trying to achieve a particular goal. Succeeding in Business Law and Politics are the top two goals that I have set for myself for the next fifteen years of my life. Through my collage, I have exemplified what art means to me. I believe art is the beauty of interaction and communication, the way you present your uniqueness through fashion, the way you interpret the world, the goals you set, and the culture that surrounds you throughout life.

 
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COLOR: I chose the Bald Eagle with the red and white background to show my patriotism and my American culture. I incorporated a picture from a magazine that has various colors and shades to exemplify my indecisive behavior from time to time. The swatch of different colors also describes different moods that I am in, due to certain circumstances. The colors also demonstrate the gradual changes that I make in life as I get older.


LIGHT: The dark Ralph Lauren illustration at the bottom left hand corner of my collage not only represents my favorite clothing brand, but it also represents the start to my journey of finding myself and who I truly am. It is a dark area because it signifies ignorance or the lack of knowing. Throughout the journey of my collage, I demonstrate what I deem worthy of characterizing myself in a structured form. At the beginning of my college is a dark area, however if you travel all the way to the end of my structure you’ll find how I conclude my journey.

TEXTURE: The pictures that make up my collage are fairly smooth because they show confidence that I know who I truly am. I also added musical notes around the edges of my pictures to fill the empty spaces in my collage. They are very numerous and crumbled (rough) because they surround my every day culture but, unfortunately, I have not connected to music like the student musicians I see every day. The literacy of music, the way musicians determine tone variation, playing instruments and the way music is composed is very confusing and it frustrates me. Although I enjoy listening to music, I have not found talent in it. The confusion and frustration is conveyed through the crumbled music notes.

VOLUME: I used the size of my pictures to create depth and volume in my composition. At the beginning of my composition, the pictures are relatively big and as you move alone the collage, the pictures begin to become relatively small. I used this effect to illustrate a spiral illusion in my composition to create a sense of depth.

LINE: I have a vertical axis in my composition. If you draw a line down my collage vertically, you can see how each side has relatively the same amount of collage on both sides. My composition is a spiral line that starts at the Ralph Lauren picture and ends at the light bulb in the center of my collage. This long, spiraled line directs the viewer throughout the entire composition.

SPACE: I filled the blank spaces with the music notes, which is my background, and the pictures of the collage itself, is the foreground. I tried to create an illusion through the spiraled line that the pictures of the collage are going into a deeper space or into the depth of the poster.

SCALE: The pictures that are big are pictures of men that have positively influenced me that also contributed to my overall growth as a man. The pictures that are small are of hobbies or memories that I’ve had when I was younger, and they are also pictures of long term goals that I have for my future. I conveyed this effect through the size of the pictures in my composition.

SYMBOLISM: The bright light bulb symbolizes not only my intelligence but a transition from the “lack of knowledge” or ignorance phase of my life to the discovery of who I truly am as a man. The Eiffel Tower symbolizes how I like to be romantic and how I can be sensitive from time to time. There are two bulls to the right and left of a series of pictures: young bold leaders, FAMILY, and motivation. The two bulls symbolize how I am very protective of my reputation, future, and most of all, family. The hand with the wedding band not only symbolizes my commitment to my future wife, but my commitment to God and my commitment of honesty to myself. The picture of Nashville symbolizes where I am from and the culture that surrounds me. The two Native American girls symbolize art in the form of communication. The car with the scenic background symbolizes what I deem to be the American dream.