Masked Identity

For this piece I thought back to my high school experience. In which, I was constantly given writing (or other) assignments with pages of guidelines and rules and regulations. Expectations were in place and we were made into cookie cutter students; we were all the same and so were all of the assignments. No deviation. No exploration. They'd shout from their podiums in front of the class and tell us, "It will be worse in college", "There is never room for error", "If you do not cite this correctly, you will be expelled for plagiarism".  Now in college, I have found that my assignments are very broad and ill defined, because professors do not want to hear their own information regurgitated back at them, they want an individual thought or idea. But somehow I found that harder than ever before. My head was still stuck in that state of regulation, and they keep telling me "Think outside of the box", but how can I when I spent 12 years learning how to stay in it.

I set my images in a classroom because I felt that was where they resonated best. With a spotlight on me, in the first image I sit, pencil in hand, thinking; in the second image I thrust my fist in the air, in anger; in the third, I stand, gaining perspective, and in the last, foot raised, frustration taking over.

I built a cube from wire then covered it with college ruled paper, ripped to shreds. Crumpled papers are attached to the sides representing tossed ideas, and loss of patience. And the word "Think" is scattered on all sides bringing back the ironic :"Think outside the box".