At first glance, it would seem that John’s self portrait and my own do not have much in common. I chose to draw about the things that are most important to me, while John decided to use his love of languages to communicate with the class. However, there were some major similarities between our self portraits that become obvious when you start to think about the reasons why we chose to use these specific strategies.
First of all, I found it interesting that we both spent the majority of our performances with our backs to the class, writing/drawing on the board. To me, this shows that we like to work privately and independently, especially when we are focused on a certain task. In addition to this, we both decided to write/draw our work right there in front of the class, as opposed to making something beforehand and then presenting it to the class in a different way. I think this shows that John and I are both daring, yet confident in our ability to express ourselves, even when on the spot. Once you look beyond the surface of our self portraits, it becomes clear that they share many key similarities.
There are also many obvious differences between John’s self portrait and my own. One thing that stood out to me is that he decided to go amongst the class and interact with them by handing out papers with phrases in different languages, while I never moved from the board. This could show that John is more willing to explore his boundaries and is more outgoing, while I choose to express myself as an individual, without interacting with others. Another significant difference that I found was in the mediums that we chose. John used chalk for the most part, while I chose to use markers. In my opinion, chalk is indicative of school and teaching, while markers are more representative of playing or doodling for children. This could show the John took this project as a more serious educational performance, while I approached it in a less formal way that allowed me to express myself in a comfortable and personal way.
Overall, I found it astonishing to view not only John’s, but all of my classmates’ self portraits. It was a wonderful sneak peek into everyone’s personality, and it was a lot of fun to hear everyone’s opinions about each other’s performances. Some people picked up on small details that I would have never noticed, and some that I’m sure even the performer themselves did not intend. When comparing my own presentation to John’s, I discovered many key similarities and differences that I did not even think of when I first watched his or thought of my own. These self portraits were an eye opening experience and I can only hope that we have more projects like this one in the future.
– Brandon Fiscina (Blog B)
