GEER ART 425 EPORTFOLIO
Research Presentation
Gallery Composition
Inquiry Zine
For my inquiry zine I depicted my journey through CSU. I chose to represent myself as a stereotypical Wildlife Biologist - cheerful, in the woods, wearing field clothes. Beginning college I was terribly shy and not sure who I was or what my goals were. Through my time in undergrad I have become more confident and feel that I know what direction I want to take in the future. Much like a cover to a book is a superficial preview to whats inside my persona is also just a surface look at who I am today.
This image is of a hand drawing a blue heron with the text "I feel like there have always been two parts of me ... and that my two majors represent these separate halves". I think that I have never felt like I am fully an artist or a biologist, and that each of these fields of study is representational of two different pieces of myself. I chose the blue heron because they are tall, solitary birds who represent tranquility. I think that my art identity is similar to the blue heron. I've always felt quiet, independent, and focused in art which contrasts with the confident external persona of the wildlife biologist.
This page depicts myself from two different sides through a head with two faces. While one is looking up it makes the other look down. On the right is myself in nature with a breeze through my hair and looking up at indistinct birds. On the left I am looking down with eyes closed into a pool of water with small ripples coming out from the center. On the right I am looking at free birds flying and on the left a bird is watching me through the window. Most of my art that I do is about my identity and emotions. I think that people expect me to be making art from the perspective of someone looking out, but I feel like my artistic self is always looking inward.
I decided to flip which sides represent my different identities on the page to give the impression that they are intertwined. If you lead two pieces of string through the book where each follows one identity through the page they would end up tangled and crossing over. Each page in the zine is looking one layer deeper into my identity as a biologist and artist. The first page depicts me only as a biologist, the second as a biologist who does illustrations, the third image has less certainty about identity, and underneath it all is a messy ball of yarn which represents all of the worry and unpredictability I feel about my future apon graduating.