For my first pose, I chose my father as my caretaker. He’s been one of the most influential people in my life, shaping me into the person I’ve become. He’s in his late sixties and is a teacher of high school English. Before that, he was an editor and travelled the world. For my realistic pose, I stood lecturing with a book in my hand. I see my father as a wise and cultured person and I chose to portray him in a confident and knowledgable pose. This is a pose he would often assume as a teacher, but it is also a pose I think represents the qualities he possesses such as knowledge, wisdom, and confidence. Many people quickly knew it was my father and that he’s a teacher. The hand was meant to represent my father’s quality of reaching out to others and share his knowledge as a teacher. The class was very spot-on in this pose.

For my abstract pose, I chose my mother as my caretaker. Although the pose wasn’t abstract in its physicality, I chose it to be abstract because it’s not a pose I would see a caretaker assume normally. It’s a mentally abstract pose in that it’s a pose a child or teenager would take, not a parent. My mother is normally a very communicative and social person. To me, this pose was an abstraction of the way she normally is and represents her her internal feelings about her difficult familial background. I see my mother as a very strong person, despite what she’s overcome in her childhood. However, there are times in my life when I’ve seen my mother falter in her strength. Everyone was correct in thinking this was a woman, however they all believed it was a child or teenager. Often, I think my mother feels like she’s still a child or a teenager and that’s she’s stuck in her parents’ divorce. This is a physical representation of the way she closes herself off and regresses into those feelings. Eloise was correct in stating that sucking my stomach and my arms, as well as the closed feet and downturned head were meant to represent a feeling of safety.  However, it was also meant to represent the way my mother closes herself off and holds in all these feelings. This person is not physically five, but is mentally regressing into the feelings of that age.