The Development of Assignment #1

In order to help precipitate my creativity, I read through the magazine article mentioned previously on how to create a “Mood Board”. I decided to spend some time contemplating what emotions are often deeply embedded in my psyche and surface when I least expect it. As I have lived as an expatriate for the past 18 years of my life, away from my home country, and have come to consider three foreign countries on totally different continents as my “home”, nostalgia is often a deep seated emotion that I cannot evade. In preparation for selecting images, I spent the next few minutes doing a brainstorm around the theme of nostalgia concentrating on the physical images and colors I associate with those places/countries. The resulting ideas were ones which I explored when commencing Task #1 of the Assignment. After some experimentation, I decided that due to my predominantly South African and Zimbabwean background and heritage, I feel particularly nostalgic about the warm color scheme associated with an African sunset. For this reason I decided to base most of my images around these warm earthy colors. Initially my selection of images was too disparate allowing for a rather haptic combination. Through a gradual process of elimination, I decided within the Task #2 phase to stream-line my subject matter. I opted to pick two cultures that I wished to represent and to try to show them as being unique and rich in their diversity. For this purpose I chose to juxtapose images related to South Africa and Korea. Although I have never lived in Korea, I have had the privilege of teaching Korean children/students for the past 11 years. I have been invited into their community as a friend and have come to really value their different viewpoint on life and culture. Many of my favorite memories of special times with Koreans have been associated with their preparation of amazing meals in our honor. For this reason I chose to use Korean chopsticks as the focal point of my collage of scanned images. The soft pastel colors of the chopstick holders provide a slight contrast with the warm earthy tones of the collection of African items. I also see a contrast between the neat precision of the little butterfly badges of the chopstick holders (a reminder of their value for precision) and the organic random markings of the porcupine quills, cheetah spots and guinea fowl feathers. Something that was a pleasant surprise was the way in which the African print cloth in the background scanned. This fabric is not naturally shimmery, but with the lights of the scanner, it mimics the texture of snake skin. This provides a comical touch of nostalgia: one of my most vivid memories of my life in Venezuela was that of coming face to face with an anaconda in my classroom. The way this cloth scanned, brings back some of my most poignant memories, helping to complete this selection of images.