Last Sunday the ArtSpeak inters and I had an amazing time making spirit boats with Jennifer Ewing! We spent the day finding intentions for, designing, and creating out boats and they came out really amazing! Everyone came up with inspiring and individual boats that I think really shows us how different we can be and how beneficial that is. IN preparation for the boat making we explored the museum, looking for art that inspired us after discussing the four elements and how they correlate to things like direction weather and the cycles of life. In reference to the cycles of life I choose a statue of Vishnu, who is the maintainer of our world according to hinduism. Vishnu, one part of a three part god that consist of the creator(Brahma) and the destroyer(Shiva) as well, really touched on the idea of birth, death, and rebirth, and how we ourselves travel through life with the same soul, regardless of external chances and influences. So, for my boat i decided to take the concept of the boats "Skin" (the outer layer of stained paper that adds to the plastic bottle frame) to heart and added a human head to my boat adorned with long flowing hair. The head of course was to illustrate the idea that we travel through our own lives and that really thats all we can claim to de, it has to be a personal experience that you must do yourself, and the addition of the long hair was to acknowledge that even though our "souls" may go unchanged, they are influenced but the past that we carry with us, whether good or bad. overall I'm extremely happy with how my boat turned out and extremely impressed with everyone else's. Even though this workshop was done after we made boats for our target sunday, it seemed like the perfect way to close a topic that we've all been very excited to learn about and experience.(Special thanks to Jennifer for the amazing experience!)
-Sophia
