Ka'imiloa

A while back, my counselor at KCC emailed me some info about a student publication called "Ka'imiloa", which features student writing and art. She encouraged me to send in some of my artwork, so I thought to myself, "What the heck... shoots!". I submitted 3 digital art pieces with no expectations. Several months later, I received a voicemail from Ka'imiloa's advisor with some great and unexpected news. Ka'imiloa had chosen 2 of my digital art pieces for their publication, and one of them was chosen to be on the cover! I was shocked! They chose my self-portrait, entitled "Taking Risks" for the cover art. It was a digital self-portrait I did for my Art 101 class, which was based on this blog entry I posted some time ago. The other digital piece they picked was my Saint Milk Illustrator project. You can pick up a free copy of Ka'imiloa in the Kalia building on KCC campus.

Taking Risks

I decided to base my Self-Portrait on recent realizations I’ve discovered about myself. Let me start by first introducing myself. My name is Cassandra Song, but you can call me Cassy. I graduated from Roosevelt High School in 1997 and attended one semester at HCC immediately following my graduation. After that brief semester at HCC, I dropped out of college to work full time. Fast forward to 12 years later, and here I am… a young woman in her early 30’s, uncertain of what she wants to do in life.

I’ve never been one of those people who knew what they wanted to do in life… and recently, it got to the point where it began to worry and frustrate me. I truly wish I were one of those people who knew at a young age what they wanted to be when they grew up. I envy those who have a strong passion for one thing and strive for it… I don’t think I’ve ever had that kind of passion before. Aside from not knowing what I want to do, I also suffer from a fear of failure… I suppose I lack self-confidence at times and am unaware of any potential and capabilities I may have. These fears, uncertainties and self-doubt had repressed me from going back to school all those years.

Four months ago, I decided to kick my fears to the curb and enrolled into KCC for Fall 2009 Semester. My goal is to try to get into the New Media Arts Program for Interface Design, as I am currently taking the required prerequisites. Upon receiving my KCC acceptance letter in the mail, I decided to look for my old HCC report card in a file cabinet where my mother has stored documents and memorabilia (most useful, informative & nostalgic; some absurd & completely embarrassing) that pertain to me dating back as far as 30 years. While shuffling through all those old artifacts from my childhood, I came across my grade school report cards with notes and progress reports from my teachers. There were two progress reports that really caught my attention… one from my 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Akinaka, and the other from my 5th grade teacher, Mrs. Miyahara.

Mrs. Akinaka (2nd grade teacher) wrote: “I’ve enjoyed working with Cassy. She’s an eager learner. I like her positive attitude & sensitivity to others. I’d like to see her take more “risks” in doing things & be more independent. Encourage these behaviors whenever possible.”

Mrs. Miyahara (5th grade teacher) wrote: “Cassy is a serious child and tries hard to succeed. She is capable of doing good work but is held back by tenseness. She needs to take “risks” and develop more confidence in her abilities.”

Reading these comments about myself from my grade school teachers was such an eye-opening experience. I can’t say why I’ve always been fearful and have held back… but reading these progress reports made me realize that I have been that way since childhood, and it’s helped me understand why I am the way I am today. In a strange sort of way, it made me feel a little better knowing that it’s something I had struggled with since an early age and not something that I had acquired recently… it was an unusual sense of relief.

Since being back in school, my fears are slowly but surely diminishing, and I am developing more confidence in myself. I also like the fact that I am tapping back into my imaginative and creative side, which had been dormant in my mind for far too long. I remember loving to draw when I was a kid… constantly sketching and creating characters, but that came to an end, as I got older. I often wonder why I stopped drawing or never took an art class in high school... I may never know why, but an interesting section in our Visual Arts textbook helped shed some light on that topic, and made me realize that I am not alone.

I quote: “Young children often demonstrate an intuitive sense of composition. Unfortunately, we lose much of this intuitive sense of balanced design as we begin to look at the world from a conceptual, self-conscious point of view. Most children who have been given coloring books, workbooks, and pre-drawn printed single sheets become overly dependent on such impersonal, stereotyped props. In this way, children lose the urge to invent unique images based on their own experiences. Without ongoing opportunities for personal expression, children lose self-confidence in their original creative impulses.
Most abilities observed in creative people are also characteristic of children during interactions with the world around them. What becomes of this extraordinary capacity? According to John Holt, author of ‘How Children Fail’, “We destroy this capacity above all by making them afraid – afraid of not doing what other people want, of not pleasing, or of making mistakes, of failing, of being wrong. Thus we make them afraid to gamble, afraid to experiment, afraid to try the difficult and unknown.”

My Self-Portrait is an expression of myself overcoming my own fears. I chose a recent picture of myself, looking off to a distance, reflecting into the past. Arranged and tiled in the background behind me are scanned images of the actual progress reports written by my 2nd and 5th grade teachers, which gradually fade out, symbolizing my fears diminishing over time.