After agonizing over what to do, being shot down for about 10 different ideas I had, finally I came up with something.
I really liked some of the other ideas I had, however they were too “figurative”. Our symbolic portrait, from what I gathered from emailing the head of the Foundation year at AIB back and forth, had to have no hint whatsoever of us actually in it. So no hands, no fingers, how silhouette, nothing. So I struggled, sure I don’t really like the way I look anyways so why shouldn’t this have been easier for me? Because I wanted to do something…real. Something more conceptual than….oh I like the color green and the forest so I’ll draw some trees. No I wanted to represent myself as conceptually and symbolically as possible. Why? Cause I’m weird like that I guess.
So here’s what I came up with:
“Le Papillon de Nuit” The Moth
A moth? Why would I choose to represent myself as a moth? Several reasons.
For a while now, I’ve associated myself with butterflies. I’ve worked a lot with them in my photography as well as my traditional work. I love their beauty, I love their symbol of change and growth. But more than that, they eventually became a very personal symbol to me. Butterflies, to me, are my sense of creativity, they are my freedom, they represent my artistic voice and my drive. They are my inspiration and my muse.
So, when I was brainstorming and telling my amazing boyfriend to tell me what I should do, he mentioned my butterflies. And I thought about it. It would work, but it needed a bit of change. Moths have the same symbolic meaning as butterflies, but a bit different.
They fly in the night, they are…darker in a way. While I embrace life (or try) and the beauty that comes with it, my emotions and personality are not as bubbly and bright as butterflies often show up to be. I am a self proclaimed pessimist.
A moth is a creature every searching for something, ever seeking the light (knowledge? perhaps).
There’s more symbolism and a poem that I love that references moths in an amazing way, but that poem is currently buried in my AP binder somewhere in my art room.
Background soundtrack Jason Webley
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