Photographic Memories.

The childhood memories I chose to convey in this week's assignment are varied and come from different stages of my life. The very first series of photos I did have a theme surrounding potatoes. This seems really strange, but as a child I was a very picky eater and I loved mashed potatoes. I ate potatoes for dinner almost every night. It is a funny fact about myself that I like to share, so it has worked its way into this assignment. The second set of photos I did were about how I cried many times in the shower during my early years of highschool over an abusive relationship I was in. I took these photos in my old prom dress, because when I was young in highschool school dances were considered a very big deal, romantically and socially. The third set is about me discovering my love for fashion in middle school. I took the photos on the grounds of my old middle school, while dressed in the Japanese street fashion "lolita" style that I discovered during that time period, while holding one of my favorite dolls I loved at the time while also holding a "lolita" designer shopping bag from Japan. This fashion style influenced my art and my life so much at the time and even now that I thought it deserved to be part of this assignment. I also took several photos showing memories I had at my grandmother's house, who I spent a lot of time with as a child. I took photos of the books she used to read to me whenever we had sleepovers, of the rocks I would throw into the pond in her backyard, and of her glass figurine collection I loved to stare at and play with when I was little. The very last photo I took was in my bathroom, featuring a cupcake and pill bottles. This represents my battles with extreme anxiety. My anxiety makes me physically sick to the point where I vomit, so many of my mornings before school were spent in the bathroom being sick. When I was 12, my doctor tried to put me on a medication I was too young for, which caused me to have severe mood swings. My parents would ask me why I was lashing out or being mean to my brother or other kids, but because of the medicine my mind was warped so I would have no recollection of doing such things. The pills I was given were always put into some kind of sugary drink or sweet because I had problems swallowing them, so that is why I used the cupcake. It was a very scary and sad time for me that I will never forget.