Self Portraits in Middles Quartz

Middles Quartz self portraits went up in the hallway this week! Shout out to Chris, Emily, and Joe for teaming up to get them hung above our hallway hooks. If you haven’t had a chance to see them, please come check out our self portraits in the West Wing.

Drawing a self portrait can be a daunting task, especially for people who have never been close with a sketchpad. I am not someone who draws and the idea of a pencil and paper self portrait doesn’t settle well with me. I know it’s a good practice to make yearly self-portraits, especially during childhood and adolescence. It’s important for children to take the time to notice who they are becoming, to study the crevices, curves, and angles that connect to create them.  But to do that through drawing just isn’t me.

I’m into wood working, bits and bobs, free piles, hammers, and loose parts. Hot glue is also a must for me. When I stumbled across a picture of a self portrait done using “loose parts”, I was immediately attracted to the idea. This year is the second time the Middles have made self portraits using wood, hot glue, and hardware. It’s a fantastic process to watch every time. This year, one student chose to exclusively use a hammer and nails to build their self portrait, sharing that hot glue is bad for the environment.

On Friday, October 3, some Middles shared about the process of making their self portraits:

Courtney: Tell me about the process of making self portraits.

Sena: I got a piece of wood and used hot glue to glue nails and screws and bolts and tags on to make a face. I kinda just thought about how if I was somebody who was looking at this portrait what would I want to see and then I tried to make it… I tried to make it.” - Sena

Courtney: What was it like to use hardware to make a self portrait?

Shepherd: It was very interesting because we had a lot of gears and hinges.

Julian: It was a lot more fun than drawing. We got to use random things and things that look like other things.

Solomon: It was fun.

Sena: I looked at my face and thought, “how do I make this into a piece of art that still looks like a human face?”

Courtney: What did you like about your portrait?

Shepherd: I like that my nose can detach.

Julian: I like that I got to use bent nails for my smile and I didn’t have to make it straight.

Sena: I enjoyed the creativity involved in making it.

Courtney: What was challenging about making these self portraits? 

Shepherd: The pieces kept on falling off. There was one piece that I eventually had to scratch marks into to get the glue to stick to it.

Solomon: It was hard to find pieces that would work, like finding the right shapes.

Freya: It was hard to get the hardware to stay on.

Julian: Deciding what I should use was hard.

Sena: The biggest struggle was not getting burned by the hot glue gun.