week 5 art project, Ben Alto

For week

For week 5 of ASA 115 "race traitors," we were asked to create a self-portrait that shows how we ourselves have internalized the knowledge provided in the class. The themes of this week revolved around the transition of race traitors to becoming race saviors, beneficial mixed race traits, and other modern responses to a mixed race heritage. These changes can either be actuated by outside influences like cultural changes or internal feelings, such as self-worth and actualization founded from accepting one’s mixed race heritage.
 
 To accomplish this I decided to create an anatomical recreation of my own head. I wrote the words “My Identity Is Not Skin Deep” to symbolize how I believe that my identity has very little tied to my mixed race heritage. This can be attributed to the phenomenon referred to as “transcending”, where a mixed race person refuses to be identified by their mixed race. This is usually referred to in a negative way, however I find myself to actively choose to not classify myself due to my personal tendency to avoid being part of any group of people.
 
To create the anatomical drawing of a head I first found an anatomical musculature diagram on the internet. Following the guidelines I created a pencil sketch of fixed around the general shape of my head. To help distinguish between muscle and tendons I drew lines following the contours of the muscles. Finally I colored in the various areas using a red and black colored pencil, with the black being partially erased to create a lighter gray color as well as the image of smoothness. I created the words at the bottom of the image using wordart in the Microsoft word application.