Animals have been used by humans for personal gain for thousands of years. However, as the usage of animals became excessive, it harmed animal populations. Despite their intention of conserving animal populations in zoos, humans caused animals to experience psychological distress, which prevented them from engaging in their natural behavior. I believe such confinement of animals is to be deemed unethical. The well-being of animals has always been something that I cared about, so when it came to the controversy surrounding the capturing of animals, I wanted to make a statement focussing on bringing awareness to this issue. The concept of my statement is “captured,” indicating the action of capturing a photo of captured animals. In today's world, photography is a great tool for building awareness, so I utilized a model of a camera to frame the scene of young animals caged within intertwined wires. A detail I included is the spherical shape of this cage, which represents the globe, as the welfare of animals is a global concern. The chimpanzee, giraffe, and elephant are all young and small to depict their vulnerability. Their vulnerability has the ability to evoke sympathy from the audience who see the photograph.

This piece was created in lieu of the commonly used metaphor of a road for life. This chalk pastel self-portrait takes on these sayings with a new perspective. With the road representing life, this piece symbolizes what experiencing and overcoming depression felt like as a part of my personal journey. While a small bump or pothole in the road may seem insignificant when looked at on it's own, when put into the perspective of a person driving on a "bumpy" road these faults begin to build up. For some, these bumps, which signify hardships or feelings of distress, add up rapidly and may result in a flat tire as seen in the portrait. The pictured flat tire is symbolism for depression, the feeling of these bumps adding up and "breaking" the car, resulting in a halted journey. My hope was to convey this feeling of "stuckness" with depression, attributing this to the many issues built up overtime, wearing down the tires. However this piece does not represent hopelessness, though it is meant to allow the viewer to connect with the solemn emotion of the character, but rather has further meaning. As pictured in the piece, even once a tire is flat this does not mean the end to ones journey, but rather the tire can be changed and the journey can continue. Once again referring to depression, showing hitting this plateau in life is not the end. This piece was my first usage of chalk pastel, giving myself a challenge.

The objects in this artwork portray my childhood memories. More than what they looked like, I remember them most vividly by the way they felt in my hands.

Childhood: The origins of creativity and happiness, where even the most trivial events in our everyday lives sparked some initiative to be joyful, to wonder, and to hope. This piece was created to convey the immense positivity and fantasy of a child’s perspective. The youthful innocence, to linger away for hours exploring and playing in the bathtub, differs with my perspective of it today. What used to be a time of exploring my imagination, playing with toys, drawing on the bathroom walls, and maybe accidentally falling asleep, now became a mundane chore that I rush to get over with so I can get back to studying. The upper portion of the piece represents my everyday ritual: I walk into the bathroom within the darker background, conveying a sense of distance and barrier, reminded of the once simple joy of taking a bath. In contrast, the bathtub is a beaming light of color, full of the tides of youth and miniature me’s exploring the world above and below my sea world. I would spend hours without a care in the world in the bath—it almost became like a mini vacation to me; it brought me to a place of my dreams, of beaches and the underwater world that my parents used to take me to. Now, burdened with the busy schedule of a high school junior, I can only long to reach that once youthful state of peace, creativity, and limitless freedom of a bathtub bliss.

“A Table’s Tale” was a recreation of the objects I set up on my table. This painting required me to understand my light source, the shadows, and the texture of each object. The objective was to replicate both the appearance and the texture. To paint the cloth, I blended beige, grays, and greens to recreate the smooth, tactile quality of the cloth. Similarly, to paint the grapes, I created multiple layers of crimson red and purple. This helped me achieve a translucent and ripe look. For the jug, I varied the light and dark contrasts to depict the reflections of the surroundings.

School violence is becoming an increasingly pervasive issue. Last March, sadly, a 16-year-old student at a nearby high school was stabbed to death. Soon after, we were put on lockdown due to a gun threat. I still remember my heart was pounding in my throat as I concealed myself in the darkness, wondering if the windows were bulletproof. Reports of school incidents persist in the news. Wanting to speak out, our school held a walkout to protest for student safety. Our signs, though made of sticks and poster paper, were powerful in their message. In this piece, I experimented with fluorescent colors in juxtaposition with a monotonic background and varying degrees of opacity to capture the voices of students across the nation, fearful yet strong, blending and converging into one unanimous plea: keep us safe!

Usually when I draw I think about a journey, I think about the different parts of me, walking, feeling, sensing the very outsides and insides of the world. While drawing this I drew myself in a lot of expressive ways, from a big headed samurai all the way to me being tiny cowboys or just a normal me smiling as I draw in my little art shed. I always like to accompany myself with the thoughts of my surroundings. The first thing I always draw is usually myself in some form or shape, and then I like the idea of making the paper feel less lonely with things and people whom I love next to me. I just wanna dedicate this piece not just to me, but to my dearest who believed in me so much, because honestly without her I wouldn’t be able to draw and love the feelings of my own creativity as much as I do.

I've made a pair of 3d “waffle” cutting boards, using grain direction and contrasting wood species to produce the illusion of depth. I first selected a piece of Padauk lumber with exceptionally straight grain. The “waffle” pattern is obtained by interweaving 2” Padauk squares with 1/4” Maple strips in a grid pattern. First, I cut the larger piece into 72 small squares. To achieve the 3d effect, I then needed to cut each square in half along the diagonal. But all the obvious methods for doing so—including the miter saw and the bandsaw—were either dangerously unsafe or wouldn’t result in a straight cut. To solve this problem, I designed a special jig for the table saw. After sketching some dimensional diagrams, I constructed a sled that runs exactly parallel to the blade. The fence on the sled needed to be perfectly square (perpendicular) to the blade. Once it was, I added a piece of plywood with a notch cut out for the square. Two hold down clamps held both sides of the square in place as I’d push the sled through the saw. The jig worked great, and its repeatability meant I could easily cut all 72 squares in half. And when I was finished, the floor was covered with a thick layer of red sawdust. Then, I just needed to glue up all ~146 pieces into the final board. Sending it through the drum sander revealed the 3d pattern in all its beauty.