Ilana Asserson- Past And Present

Ilana Asserson
Professor Elizabeth Garber
ARE 130-001 Section E –Jay Reyes
April 27, 2011
Artist’s Statement
The picture I selected for the Photo Project was one that is a favorite amongst my family and I. In it, I am five years old and have a huge grin on my face. My mother and father adore this photograph. They are particularly enamored with how my large dark brown eyes seem to pop out from the photograph. I am wearing the denim sleeveless shirt that I got as a birthday present from my parents. I liked wearing it on special occasions, such as holidays and birthday parties. The photograph also shows that I had a thick head of dark brown hair. I was fond of using bows and colorful elastic bands, called “scrunches” to hold my side ponytail in place.
I was able to recreate this photo because I borrowed a friend’s denim shirt to mimic the shirt I wore in the photograph. I also used a hair tie and put a small ponytail on the side of my head, just as in the original photograph. Thankfully, I still have my thick head of dark brown hair, olive skin tone, and large dark brown eyes. However, the background was the tricky part to recreate.
I thought the process was easy to implement and a good learning experience. It allowed me to go back in time some fifteen years and take a look at older family photographs. I still believe that I have a lot of the same facial features, just more mature! Since denim shirts are back in style, or perhaps they never really “went out of style,” it was easy to recreate that. I found it difficult to recreate the background since the photo was taken in our family room at my home in New Jersey, and I could not return home last week to use the same background. Overall, it was a fascinating project that allowed me to be resourceful, imaginative, creative, as well as sentimental.