Irina Shlafman
Sunday, December 3rd, 2006Just the Beginning
This project gave me the opportunity to explore my artistic side as well as to delve into the past. I began to look through old photographs of my cute baby self and my mom’s younger days, remembering the life we once led back in my native country, Moldova. My creation attempts to encompass the difference in the lifestyles my mother and I lead now, the journey we traveled to get to where we are today, and thoughts about where we go from here.
To illustrate my background, I introduced a mix of colors, all of which have significance. On the left, we have stark black, which represents my nine years in Moldova. Then, on the opposite corner on the right, we have bright green. On its own green can come to symbolize nature, youth, and hope. I utilize green as a representation of the blossoming life, full of opportunities, that I live now. Last but not least, you will notice a piece of golden material paced across the collage. This cloth is a piece of the actual sash that I wore on my graduation day from high school signifying that I was in the Top Fifty of the school. I placed it in the middle as it is separates my past from my present.
It is important to notice the transition from the black to the gold, from the past to the present. I used matches for this transition because to me they suggested the image of fire and flames to coincide with the yearning and igniting motivation within my mother to leave a country where there was no expected advancement. These physical matches stand for something internal that inspired us to take a risk and move across the globe to a foreign country.
In this collage, I present to the public just a piece of my family’s great adventure and journey. The path we were to follow was not an easy one, which comes through in the rough, hilly texture of the road that I created. I incorporated cereal corn flakes, because their crispiness and sharpness and in a way their sickly yellow color shows the hardships that we had to overcome over the years–whether it was earning a living, obtaining a good home, or maintaining healthy relationships. I placed three pictures here. First, and most important, is one of my mother, whom I have put on a pedestal of a flower, because without her strength and power as an independent woman, juggling being a single mother and a career woman, I would not be the person that I am today. Then there is a picture of me as a child and a precious photo of my puppy, Sunny when she was just one year old.
Only after completing my collage, did I begin to see that, no matter what, this is just the beginning. In front of me are bigger and better days. I am not sure whether my future road will be less rocky or less steep but I know now that I must take greater leaps to reach the top.
