For My Capstone I created a live edge side table. These tables are special because they are generally made of one continuous slab of wood and sometimes the edge of the table is the actual edge of the tree. I knew I wanted to make something with my hands and because I am part of the SLA CTE engineering program I have access to the engineering shop. The Process for making a table like this started with creating engineering drawings to flush out your vision for the piece. Next I found a beautiful black walnut slab in a local lumber yard. I quickly got to work cleaning up the wood, removing dead wood, bark, and milling it so it was flat. Large slabs of wood almost always have cracks and holes which I’m choosing to fill with a black epoxy resin. The next step is to cut the slab down to the desired table size. In my case I wanted to leave one of the edges untouched to save the natural feel of the piece. Next is a slow grueling process of sanding the table in preparation for applying a finish. The finish I’m choosing to put on my piece is a Rubio monocoat, it provides protection while also looking incredible. The last step is to attach the legs, this can be done using threaded inserts, I chose to order black steel legs which will compliment the black epoxy running through the piece.

Through this capstone I learned an incredible amount about woodworking and some of the woodworking processes required to make a live edge epoxy table. It also opened a room for personal growth, learning about how I personally react and tackle big projects.

My artwork takes place during the staff meeting at the ward. The staff are all giving their opinions on how to deal with McMurphy’s actions with the TV incident. Most of the doctors and nurses decided that they should move Murphy to the “disturbed” group. One staff member, Alvin, did not agree. He was met with instant backlash from his colleagues. “Here he comes, all two hundred and ten red-headed psychopathic irishman poids of him, right across the interviewing table at you.” (135) They provide the hypothetical scenario I have chosen to depict in the artwork to attempt to scare him into changing his views.

The significance of this scene is its impact on the rest of the staff members, especially Alvin. He says “I’m afraid i’ll have to withdraw my suggestion… if only for my own protection” (135) This scenario he poses is completely theoretical. McMurphy physically had not attacked anyone in the ward. He hasn’t punched any staff in the ward. Yet this theoretical scenario is believed to be true and destined to happen to everyone in the meeting. It preys on people’s natural thoughts of self preservation. This is something people do in real life. They provide scenarios that aren’t real and haven’t happened yet which changes people’s actions and opinions. This is a manipulation technique, and as it is helpful to be aware of theoretical scenarios that could come to pass, people should live in the moment .

I wanted my artwork to portray that it is all a theoretical scenario. One way I’ve seen this achieved is through comic books and thought bubbles. This drove me to go with the animated comic book style. The cloud around the image is supposed to represent the thought bubble, the way the whole scene is inside the peoples heads. To add onto the economic book style I added the “POW” for a more dramatic punching effect. To keep the image as accurate to the book as possible I gave McMurphy a large build and curly hair.

The chapters containing the secret club left me very confused, particularly chapter 38 where Moira was talking about her escape attempt. The only thing I could think about when reading this section was the eyes’ involvement with it. There is no way they dont know the club exists. Let’s establish that first. Throughout the book various characters are scared the rooms in the houses are bugged, if the eyes have a reach like that, there is a very small chance they don’t know about the club. During chapter 38 on page 243, when Moira and Offred are talking in the bathroom they say, “I look up at the ceiling. ‘Is it bugged?’ …. ‘Probably,’ says Moira.” The people working there assume the eyes know everything about everything all the time.

Why don’t the eyes shut it down? They seem to spend more time and energy busting smaller crimes in the gilead like a single x-handmade Moira escaping. They go through all that energy for a single person and yet there is a club with countless people breaking the rules and they don’t shut it down. This is one of those situations where the eyes could shut it down but then their whole system falls apart. all the commanders are protected because of their numbers. Maybe the eyes can afford to replace that many commanders at once. If they busted all the commanders word would spread and the act of rebellion the club symbolized might give people in the Red Center hope.

Another possibility is that the eyes let it exist so that all the trouble making and rule breaking happens in a more confined hidden away place. If the club is abolished all the rule breaking might spread to other places less hidden from the general public. Later in the chapter when Moira is talking about how she was captured something just seemed off. She said “I won’t go into what happened after that. I’d rather not talk about it. All I can say is that they didn’t leave any marks.” (248) This just doesn’t seem like Moira’s character at all. In the beginning of the book she is portrayed to be the brave reckless one, escaping, threatening to kill one of the Aunts. And now all a sudden she doesn’t want to talk about what the eyes did to her after she got caught. It seems like there wasn’t physical pain, but maybe more of a psychological torture or conditioning. Something that would alter her character into not wanting to speak on it. Possibly this is related to the earlier quote about the room being bugged.

My running theory is she told Offred too much and the eyes came back and took her. The chapter ends with a very ominous “I never saw her again.”(250) so possibly that was connected. But why did the eyes let her come back to gilead in the first place? They caught her trying to escape and they just let her come back to the club. And she seemed content at the club. Like she was done running. That doesn’t seem like her. The eyes sent her back to work at the club, so it’s confirmed that they knew about it, they just didn’t want her at the red center. The eyes seem to be weirdly human. They gave Moira a choice of what she wanted to do after she directly broke the law. Overall the chapter was very confusing to me, there’s so much mystery around the eyes and what their intent is.

This image outlines the use of fear in government and society. This scene takes place while the handmaid and Olglen are walking back from collecting groceries. They decided to take the long way back at home just to peer upon the wall. It is almost as if they are drawn to the scene. The handmaid thinks “I know as well as she does what she’s really after” (30) in response to Olglen wanting to see the church which is next to where the bodies hang from the wall. Why would someone want to see an image they fear? Perhaps to remind herself of her adherence to her role as a handmaid in the new society.

I wanted to have the only color in the piece be the red in the handmaid’s attire. The way they are described in the book gives the feeling of everything around them being dull and less interesting compared to the handmaids so I wanted to convey that in my piece. The red also draws the spectators eye first before the bodies hanging on the wall. My intent was for the viewer to look at the handmaid’s first and follow their gaze to the people up on the walll.

This scene is significant to me because it shows how people, especially governments use and or abuse fear. In the context of the book, fear is used to control people. If you act out of line, you will be strung up on the wall. America is very similar and only less extreme. If you act out of line, you can go to jail or you will pay a fine. Some of the world still follows the handmaid’s tales methods. It’s fear that is the backbone to any governments control over their people. This made me think about whether fear is essential for a country to function. The unfortunate truth is that it is. Without the fear of consequence there would be no societal order. The majority if not all humans possess some extent of greed. The fact of the matter is, we all want something, whether it be an item, a comfortable life, or even a comfortable life for our children. If someone such as a loved one is hurt and needs help, needs something, an item or a cure people break the law today to help them. In today’s world we see people despite possibilities of jail or a fine breaking the law to help or provide for someone they love. The love they feel outweighs the consequences for their actions. This was a driving factor for Luke, the handmaid, and their baby girl. They forged documents, disregarding the fear and tried to flee the country because of love for their freedom and child. Now think if everyone acted like this, society would be chaos. With no fear of breaking the law people would no longer need to weigh the risks and rewards of taking what they want. people would no longer need something as powerful as love to justify breaking the law. With no government, no fear of the consequences for breaking law, what is stopping people from taking what they want? Morality? Sure this could be enough for a small handful of people, but not the masses.

This brings up the question of if humans are inherently evil or not. This can be traced to experiments now outlawed such as The stanford prison experiment and Milgram experiment. The Milgram experiment demonstrated that regular humans would knowingly administer lethal doses of electricity to another person when instructed to do so by an authority figure. If people were inherently good, they would take matters into their own hands and stop delivering lethal shocks of electricity to the screaming recipient. If people were inherently good then the use of fear in government would be needed. How much fear is too much? In the handmaid’s tale, there is the very direct and extensive abuse of fear by the government. You see people disregarding their old life and conforming to a drastically different regime and lifestyle purely because of fear. In America there is the debate of if the death penalty should still be allowed, which ultimately boils down to if the government should be allowed to threaten with that level of fear. Unfortunately the world we live in isn’t so different from the handmaids, its governed all by fear.

In my previous post I talked about why I switched my topic from elephant poaching to teenage sleep. In short I switched because the problem of teenagers not getting enough sleep is something that I myself struggle with and people I know struggle with it. When researching sleep deprivation i found that around 87% of teenagers struggle with it so chances are you or someone you know is affected by it Right now I am telling alot of my friends and family about the topic and informing them of all the signs that can show they are experiencing sleep deprevention. I’m also talking to people about what the effects of sleep deprivation are so they know to get enough sleep and to share the same information with others. Stanford medicine has an article about teen sleep. It talks about one solution to sleep prevention, moving back school start times. This is only a partial solution though because more people need to know that it is a big problem and that they should be getting more sleep.For my agent of change I wanted to make a presentation and share it with my advisory. I decided to do this because it is an easy way to get the word out to a bunch of teenagers that most likely struggle with the issue at hand. Unfortunately due to reasons on my end, I was unable to present my presentation to my advisory. I was able to share my presentation to my class though. I think that overall I was effective at making change. My classmates all know about the issue so they can take action if they so please. I know that I have made change in myself as well. I have started to get more and more sleep so if i didn’t make a change for everyone else, i at least did for myself.Overall this project was extremely fun. This is probably the case because of how it is all about something that I am passionate about. With my first topic, animal poaching I really wasnt super passionate about and it didn’t feel quite right doing it for my project. I think one of the things I could have done better would have been actually presenting my presentation to my advisory. I don’t think that there is much left for me to do to make change besides telling more people. Others including you who are reading this can tell others about the problem and you yourself can make change.

I recently switched my topic from elephant poaching to teenage sleep. There were a couple things that motivated me to make the change. First off, I wasn’t very inspired to work and complete the elephant poaching project. This is due to how exotic the topic is. Yes it’s a big problem but it’s out of my range to actually make a change in. When choosing a new topic I wanted to pick something that was impacting my everyday life and was within reach to change. That’s when I had noticed how my sleep schedule had affected my attention and learning throughout my classes and day to day activities. This is when the topic of sleep came to mind. It would be very easy to make a change due to the fact that I am always surrounded by teenagers with sleep problems and it’s something that I struggle with. So even if i couldn’t make a change with other people i could with myself. During my research for this project I came across many interesting things. For example seventy percent of teenagers are getting too little sleep. So chances are you are affected by it or someone you know is. Although the numbers vary between people most doctors recommend getting eight to ten hours of sleep a night as a teenager is critical for “physical, intellectual and emotional growth.” Although sleep can seem like such a small thing, it contributes a major role in your mood and much more the next day. Sleep deprivation has many effects on teenagers’ day to day life. For example, sleep deprivation can in some cases lead to struggle with memory. Getting to little sleep also affects your motivation and productivity inside and outside of school. It can also increase the risk of depression, which is a serious medical condition. So how do you know you need more sleep? In my research I’ve found that there are multiple signs you need more sleep. If you notice that you have to regularly take naps in the middle of the day that are over thirty minutes in length then you probably need more sleep. Other signs of sleep deprivation include not being able to think straight, struggling getting out of bed in the morning, and getting worked up over little tasks. There are other more common side signs like the well known general sleepiness. How do you maintain a healthy sleep schedule? There are many things you can do once you have a healthy sleep pattern to maintain that pattern. One of the main things is to avoid looking at screens before you go to bed. Other things you can do to get better sleep are things like exercising daily, avoiding long naps, and going to sleep around the same time every day.

I created this piece on my laptop at my house in Philadelphia PA. For this piece, I wanted to make a descriptive piece of writing that show what the past months have been like. I didn’t want to make some regular piece of writing though. the more I thought about the it the more I realized that several main words came to mind when I thought about the year of 2020. Pandemic, Tension, Laughter, Focus, and relief.

This writing relates to the theme of being a teenager during 2020 because it reflects some of the day to day experiences that I had. To write this I would write a paragraph about something that I remembered, or that had happened sometime that day. Each paragraph was written on a different day for I wanted my mindset on different days show in my writing. For example you may see that some paragraphs are sad/dark and others are happy.