Create Your Own

Often we act without thinking about what we’re doing or why we’re doing it. Taking the time to reflect on an experience—be it an art-making experience or anything else—can help us understand what we’ve done and why and how we did it, which can bring us forward into more thoughtful ways of acting in the future.

In the Stories in Self-Portraits project, the artists documented their answers to a series of questions after each art-making session. Doing so helped reveal aspects of their project and work habits that they hadn’t noticed. Then, once the piece was complete, they let it sit for a week or two before returning to reflect on the experience as a whole in a follow-up interview.

You can do the same. Below are the questions you can ask yourself at the end of each stage of your project, and then further questions that you can ask yourself once it’s complete. The answers to all these questions can help you tell the story of what you experienced.

Questions at the End of Each Stage:

  1. Walk through today’s art-making session. Describe what you did, as you lived through it. Be specific and concrete. Bring up tiny details, even if they seem unimportant. Describe your experience from inside, like a state of mind. Include your thoughts, feelings, moods and emotions. Think about how your body felt, how things smelled and sounded, etc. If you can, use metaphors.
  2. Did you encounter any roadblocks in your work today? If you did, describe what happened. How did you go about dealing with them?
  3. What tools and materials did you use? Describe them.
  4. How did you interact with your tools and materials? How did they contribute to your artwork?
  5. Did you use any reference materials in your work today? If so, describe them.
  6. If you used references, how did you interact with them? How did they contribute to your artwork?
  7. Were you doing anything else while you were working? For instance, were you watching or listening to something?
  8. Did you ever notice the passage of time? If so, what did you think?
  9. How do you feel now? What is on your mind?
  10. What are you going to do next?

Questions at the Very End:

  1. Describe your finished product. Go into detail about its specific features.
  2. Thinking back over the whole development of the piece, walk through the story.
  3. In that story, are there details that emerged that didn’t come up in the other set of questions you asked? Or are there things that seemed important before but have now faded into the background?
  4. Think about the tools you used throughout this process. What does it feel like when you use them? Do you remember what it felt like the first time you used them? Has it changed?
  5. What other options for tools and materials were there? Why did you use these ones?
  6. Think about the process you went through. What did doing this project mean to you? Did it remind you of anything, or make you think or feel anything?
  7. Now think about the finished product. What does the product itself mean to you? Does it remind you of anything, or make you think or feel anything?
  8. How did tracking your process through the other set of questions affect your process?

After you do all this, look back on all your answers. What do you think? Spend some time writing your impressions.

If you wish, you can try your hand at weaving together your answers into a coherent narrative. Remember, sometimes the best place to begin a story isn’t the chronological beginning. If you’d like, you can submit your story to this website, and we’ll consider posting it.