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The prompt for our tribute cards asked us to think of someone we would want to make a project for. I had a really hard time coming up with someone I was comfortable making a card for. I was thinking about how as kids we would blindly make cards for our parents in elementary school about how much we loved them. I remember seeing my dad as a hero, mainly because he worked as a cop and a firefighter and I knew he literally saved lives, but I think also because kids are desperate to be loved and view our parents/guardians as that source even if thats not the reality. My card represents the perspectives of your parents as a child and then as an adult.

I really liked the exploration days we had before introducing the project. I think it really helped me feel more comfortable, engaged and actually excited about the project. In the pictures above I started focusing on aesthetic with the origami and from there I considered more about function. I was looking into if connecting lights could transfer through each other, how many lights/ colors I could use, and alternate ways I can use the copper tape (not laying it flat). If I were to do this project again, I want to do something a little more complicated with the lights.

My earliest thoughts were about design and aesthetics. I was thinking about the child drawings, my blue house and the piano when first coming up with ideas. My dad was my inspiration to my involvement in music at such an early age. One of my only happy and clearer memories with him was signing “Don’t Stop Believing” with my older sister as he played. It really only felt right to pay something to that, but also relates to how he has missed out on being around to see the things I am really passionate about. I was initially stressed about the piano looking too cliché. I personally feel like instruments or music notes included in art often appear and feel that way. It was not long after the piano idea that I knew I wanted to include sound. I actually wanted one of the keys to be a button that would begin the sound, but I had no idea how to do that and with the way the sound piece functioned, I am not sure that would have been possible.

The words I chose came from a poem called ‘Daddy Are You Proud of Me?” by Nego True. I go back to this poem a lot and I feel like the words phrase every feeling I have had. I think the ones I chose come with a lot of innocence and realization as well:

“Daddy Are You Proud of Me?”

“I wish I could of hired you when I was a kid so I could of spent more time with you.”

“Sending money and spending time is not the same thing.”

I think that as kids we are trained to hold an unspoken expectation we have on our parents that they should be around to see the things we achieve or share experiences and the things that make us happy with them. I hate that I crave validation from someone I will never get it from. I would love to be able to call my dad and tell him about the frisbee tournament I just won or introduce him to the people I care about. Questioning if I was truthfully ever wanted or wanting him to be proud of who I am if we were to ever reconnect is something I come back to probably every day. And as much as I would like to ignore it, I feel like it was ingrained that he was supposed to be by my side and I don’t think there will ever be a time that I am completely past that feeling. Realistically, the only relationship I have left with my dad are the money transactions for child support. Sometimes those don’t exist and sometimes I wish my mom/ family could be financially capable to not need it. I often feel like a burden to him, simply another bill he is supposed to pay. He is the kind of parent who would drive a friend and I somewhere, hand out money, let us do our own thing and consider that spending time together. Things seem to revolve around work and money for him and so the first line really resonated the feeling of that maybe he would be dedicated to his children if he was paid to do it.

Incorporating sound to things that don’t always include that is something I have been excited to try and utilize in the past. I enjoyed that this was an art education project but how this allowed me to reach into music, poetry and STEM. I think there was something really awesome about this project that it also asks you to think for someone else. I think a lot of my art mainly only relates to myself and my thoughts. I would love to take this project into a future classroom because of the amount of exploration of materials it allotted and the creativity and differences found between everyone’s work.