A Reflection from Within

A Reflection from Within

Self-Portrait Project
By Anna Cater

Mirror

You step into the mirror. A face looks back at you. But it’s not your own. Visually, you see a blonde girl, bags under her grey eyes, pale, but that’s only what returns your gaze. To others, she is an intelligent, witty, smiling girl. What you can’t see is the many layers underneath the pale skin, glazed over with internal conflicts, a soul as complex and layered as an onion. The mirror can’t reflect that she has an internal war going on in her head everyday, friends or him? The mirror can’t echo the places she has been, the things she has seen and done. The mirror fails to show that her mind is like a wilting plant, with validation being the water. The mirror can’t reflect that she has negative monologue on repeat in her head, scripted by her peers. Just go away. You’re a burden. You need to act normal. You’re so ignorant, it’s comical. The mirror can’t show that she fears for her life everyday. The mirror can’t emulate the countless hours she’s spent crying. The mirror can’t grasp that she has to take medications every day to remain stable. But yet, all people see is what is shown in a mirror. And what they can see, is how they slowly destroy her.

Artist's Statement

My image is meant to represent that there are two different sides to each person, the physical side which is seen, and the soul which cannot be seen. On the left, it is a picture of me smiling and how everyone else would see me. It’s in color because that’s what you see when you look at someone.  Only half of my face is shown to embody that you can’t see everything about a person just by looking at them. I chose to put this one on the left because eyes read from the left to right and you would typically see this one first. However, on the right is a picture of me in black and white. The absence of a shirt is to symbolize that if someone were to expose this part of themselves, they would feel as if everyone else saw them naked. The black and white represents that this part isn’t always the most vibrant and showy but it still exists. My hair is messed up to symbolize the internal conflicts going on in someone’s head. I’m wearing glasses because they’re something that I almost exclusively wear around my family, so they’re rarely seen by my peers, similarly to the soul. 

The idea behind my self-portrait is that there’s two sides to people, the side you can outwardly see, and the internal soul. When you look at someone, you can’t see their soul. You can only see their appearance, and that can be the most devastating thing to that person. People often assign judgments based upon what they see, the kinds of clothes you’re wearing, how you do your hair, whether you have makeup on or not. But it isn’t a worthy assumption to say that the person who can’t afford brand name clothing is inherently ugly. They could have the most beautiful soul. Or the person who dresses to impress nearly everyday could be crumbling to pieces on the inside. So, in conclusion, what you initially see about someone could be completely mismatching with what they have going on in their head.

They Say, I Say

They Say, I Say William Shakespeare once said, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” What he means is that even if someone had a different name, they would still be the same thing. Society emulates this to an extent. Some people say that we’re born one way and we stay that way throughout our lives. It just evolves into something more complex than you were initially born with. It’s like all the different variations of the saying “Some people never change” that we hear frequently. Whether it be negatively or positively stimulated is up to the environment they’re placed in. But is identity too broad to be captured in such a simple way? Rebeca Hwang speaks in her TED talk “The Power of Diversity Within Yourself” about her journey to find her identity. She calls herself a Japanese-looking Korean who speaks with an Argentinian accent who is too Korean to be Argentinian but too Argentinian to be Korean. She used to think that since she had failed to identify with any of these groups she thought she could belong to, she would never find her identity. But that became less important to her as she got older. She says, “Now, today my quest is to no longer find my tribe. It’s more about allowing myself to embrace all of the possible permutations of myself and cultivating diversity within me and not just around me.” (Hwang). She thinks that you’re born as one thing, but can become so many other things based on the environment you’re raised in. In her case, it was being born in Korea but growing up in Argentina. But she stands by the belief that the more diverse someone is, the more doors and opportunities they create for themselves. I agree with what Hwang is saying in her TED talk. I think that identity is formed based on the environment you grow up in. 

I think that you are born with some parts of who you are now, but I think the positive parts are given a better chance to flourish in good circumstances. Likewise, the negative parts can surface more if they are given a bad environment to present themselves in. For instance, in the video “Race”, one man gathers a multitude of different people to compete in a race for money. He has them all start at the same place. However, some people get the opportunity to get farther ahead than others by answering questions correctly. He starts asking questions like, “Take one step forward if as a teenager, you have never had to work to support your family,” and, “Take one step forward if you had both parents present growing up.” (Race). Gradually, some people start to get a starting place farther ahead. He emphasizes that this isn’t to say the people in the back can’t win, but they either have to work a lot harder to get to the same place or some don’t even try at all. I think this gives a good representation of how some people have things come way easier to them without trying. This represents the kinds of good or bad environments your identity can form in. Someone who has to work to support their family as a teenager might grow up to be more hardworking than someone who doesn’t. Thus, they identify as a parental figure in their family much sooner than normal. So, in conclusion, I believe that someone’s identity comes from the environment they grow up in.