A Long Road to Happiness
As someone who has been raised in a family that has many sides, tales, and beliefs, somethings can get stuck and overlooked. Luckily, my family does realize somethings after awhile especially with the newer technology like Ancestroy.com. After being on the site for about a year or so, secrets and hidden family arose which was only the start of this rollercoaster, but this only wanted me to meet the people I've never met, maybe not in person, but in memory and through writings. My great grandmother passed away when I was very young, but I've always heard about her, but I had little to no recollection of her, but with the freedom Apollo has given me, I was able to be in another's shoes that actually hit close to home. I used perspective in this project by collecting information by interviewing my great aunts, grandmother, father, aunts - pretty much anyone who remembers this woman. Also, I analyzed her last writings, recollections of her life in a journal that my grandmother requested of her, which was mind-blowing with her life contrasting mine and honoring her with these projects for her sacrifices that caused so many to be happy, including me. Throughout this whole project, this was never about getting a good grade about school, this was about my family - to learn about the strongest woman that has made everyone's lights a little bit brighter.
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Social Studies |
I will be honest here, this was the first time I have painted in little over a year and this was a starting point for me. When thinking about my art project, I wanted something that could be treasured and personal for me to have and something that can serve as a reminder. So, I painted one of the lines she wrote in her journal that really stuck out to me and something that really summarizes who she was. For a further explanation, click on the button below for a full analysis.
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Fitting into her shoes...Now, I knew exactly what I wanted to do when it came to this portion of my project when it hit me - one week before the project was due. My great grandmother was a big fan of poetry her entire life and I thought "What could I do with this helpful information? Ahhh, poems for the history portion, maybe?" This idea was handed to me and since in Apollo you choose your level of success, I wanted to do that and more. Instead of doing three, I wanted to do five from multiple perspectives: mine and hers. Since, I never knew her, I had to annotate her writings and keep records/notes from stories about her to truly know her and I wanted these poems to almost feel like a conversation, about her telling me about her life, in her own words. I highlighted in these poems her highest and lowest parts of her life which speak for themselves and I didn't want to make these poems for everyone to understand, but I wanted to make them for me to understand. In the last poem from my perspective which contrasts the introduction poem, it's reflective of how I feel so far which might change in a couple of years, you never know someone's full story until the there's a period at the end of the sentence.
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