I enjoyed this project and seeing it transform visually over the course of this semester, really looking at the piece I can not only see my growth as a whole but I can see how all my past experiences that are visually represented work together to make this physical representation of who I am currently. This piece has not only grown in scale but the beginning began with a center of me and has worked itself into this puzzle of my stories, perspectives, and teaching experiences to become this larger and more complete image of myself. I used a lot of similar metaphors for growth and change such as birds, wings, butterflies, and certain colors that I associate with my personal growth and change. 

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If I had to choose a single word to use as a hashtag for all of these entries it would be #always. Because I am always learning, I will always be learning, growing, and changing not only as an educator but as a person. I will always want to try again, to look back at my past and how that has influenced me and my future, I will always remember my growth and where I have come from but I will always strive for more, to do and be better for myself and my future students. Always is a word that has stuck with me during this experience and I feel as though it is a good summation of my learning this semester and in the future. 

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I think as I looked at several of my past experiences it was clear how I envisioned representing them, I knew the symbol I was wanting to put on the piece and why. However, collaging them together and making it look like the piece goes together was more of a challenge. I realized that I was drawn to similar visuals, however, whether it was birds, butterflies, or more abstracted and representational imagery. I think that these pieces and images represent my story, my change, and how I started this journey as an art educator to where I am now. This idea of flight, transformation, and change was very present in each of my journals. I also chose to repeat some of these images as repetition is something that I typically do in my art as it tends to make a visual impact of importance and unity to me. And while each piece is separate they do all combine to create one visual story of my learning. 

As a student, I have learned and grown so much, but what was most shocking to me during this semester was how much of my life and experiences have revolved around teaching Art. I feel like my life has been so intertwined with this path that I do not know how I didn’t realize this is what I wanted to do until more recently. I began this semester with nerves about my abilities as both a teacher and also a student, worried that I would not be successful and unsure of who I was just in general. Now, I feel more confident in not only my teaching abilities but also in the tools and techniques I can use while teaching. Anything from inquiry questions, resources, integrative studies, choice-based learning practices, and lesson planning. I feel as though this semester I was not only able to learn these things but then practice or see them in practice so I could use them myself or imagine how I would go about using them within my classroom in the future. 

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This piece is something I have been working on all semester, but I want to add flowers and other symbols of growth and change the new colored border of my journal entries to connect the center to the outside without changing it too much. To fully represent the visual two-dimensional piece I have been doing all semester, this multimedia painting piece and the physical presence of my own stories inspired each of the symbols. 

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I mostly used different types of paint- spray, watercolors, acrylics, flow paints, gouaches, and pens. As well as collaged images and text, markers, colored pencils, pens, crayons, stamps, and inks to create this piece and these are what I will continue to use in the final piece. I used these because they are a representation of the type of art that I love to make and a good representation of this foundation that I already have that I have built upon and will continue to build upon as an educator. I have used many different types of drawing and painting techniques for this piece like blending, layering as well as collaging, to create a dynamic and interesting composition that connects all of my learning this semester to the center of my piece, which is my story. My education and journey began with my story, my teachers, family, and friends. It will continue with my students and learning. I am the center of my own story, but I am not the ending. I am not the only piece of this puzzle, each section and material and technique represents another piece of the story of how I got to this point in my life.