Talib Coffield

Capstone Project

Ms. Lawson

“ Blast From The Past “ was a fashion show that I and two others conducted together as our capstone project. Our fashion show took place in the auditorium of SLA @ Beeber. The name of the show is called “ Blast From The Past “ because all of our different scenes from the show was decades. Our show featured the 70’s, 90’s, Present , and Afrocentric scenes.

Each scene was designated to either me or one of my partners. At first when we decided to have a fashion show as our capstone, we were going to bring in designers around Philly and present their clothes. However, after time passed we realized that we wouldn’t be doing any work. We changed our initial idea and plan for our capstone. We still were doing a Fashion show, but this time we were the designers.  Each scene was given to either me or my partners, and individually we styled the clothes that the models wore to replicate the decades. Having the idea in tact was just the first task of many in order for our Capstone Project to be a success. The process of our Capstone was not an easy one, but it was a fun one. Through this Fashion Show students from 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade were able to connect and bond. Students became more comfortable with each other and was allowed to feel like themselves no matter how silly they each felt about the clothes.

This project has taught me a lot when it comes to my future life. I learned that if you want to put on a production, you must have an equipped team. This was one of the biggest things I learned working on my Capstone this year. Being able to learn this now is extremely influential to my future aspirations. Also, I learned a lot about the different fashion trends and fabrics that went with each decade. With this I was able to see what changed through the years, and/or what trend stayed. The Blast From The Past show had a great outcome,  many enjoyed and loved the outfits that models had on. Because the show was so good, our capstone ended successfully. It was a blast being able to work with partners/partner that have the same goals that I have. Due to this we were able to collaborate and put on a great production.

   “ A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art.” -  Paul Cezanne

I created this piece of work to test myself, and see what I will be able to accomplish. I normally don’t do projects like this one because it is out my realm. However, with this project I decided to take a chance and approach art in a new way for me: Mixed media Drawing. Drawing, painting, coloring etc was never one of my strong suits. By me doing a mixed media drawing I was able to open up to these techniques. I created this work to prove to myself that I am an artist in more than one way. My overall vision for my piece was for it to be refreshing, unique, and peaceful. When I first decided to make a tree I wanted this piece to feel like the beginning of spring when you saw it. I wanted it to have an impact on the people that see it, and make them happy by just looking at it. I want my work to communicate with viewers the idea of peace and serenity. When you look at the painting you see many colors that allows you to see a fresh, new , cultivating canvas.

I achieved a lot through this project. I was really excited with the result, and it surprised me because again I never did paintings, drawings, or sculptures before. I enjoyed trying and succeeded in doing a new concept. My current piece of work is nothing like my previous work. My previous work consisted of sewing, threading, and patching. This project took me a while to do because I had to use 3 new painting techniques that I had no idea of such as : Acrylic paint, watercolor, and pen.  The first thing I did first was paint watercolor onto my canvas and then I started using pen and Acrylic paint afterwards. This painting was also contemporary art. An artist that does work that was similar to what I did is Jane Frank. Frank uses a lot of different techniques and colors in order to capture the eyes of the viewer. I was truly inspired by her work, and that is why I decided to make this painting.

Taalib Coffield

Ms.Isakowitz

1.10.17

Statistics

Suicide is the third leading cause of death for people ages 15-24 all over the world according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. I researched how a country’s average income affects the country’s suicide rates. Within my research I found out some important information that is useful and informative. Through graphical analysis, I have found that there is no major correlation between suicides being high amongst high income countries and vice versa. There is also no major correlation between high suicide rates amongst low income countries. I found out that middle income countries have an exceeding high suicide rate. Through my research, I will try to explain how other resources were wrong when they came to the conclusion suicide rates are the highest amongst high income countries. Instead I’ve found rates to be the highest in middle income Countries based off of my evidence I found that to not be true, also I will explain why the suicide rates are what they are in each income country. The hope is to gain knowledge of how does income affect the low, middle, and high income countries.

       Low income countries are fairly accused of having high suicide rates because they’re low in the economic level according to Huffington Post. Also, In many resources from Huffington Post. I found it is more common that high suicide rates come from high income countries. As I did my own research I started to realize that that wasn’t the occasion anymore.Based off of graphical analysis, suicides do happen in Low income Countries however, the most suicides do not come from low income countries as many believed before.  There is some level of suicide rates in the low  income countries, and my question is why? During my research I seen that Afghanistan was a low income country that had a low suicide rate, but still had a suicide rate. The income of Afghanistan in the year 2002 was $647dollars with a suicide rate of 5.4 per 100,000 people. According to my Gapminder Graph.

( Figure 1 )

This proves that many people think that there were massive amount of suicides within the low income countries. However, based off of Afghanistan and later research, I can say that this rate is kind of low. Still I wonder to myself why are there 5.4 per 100,000 suicides still? Many of the suicides that happen in Afghanistan mainly come from women who have been forced into marriages, that is rape victims, and that is victims of domestic violence. Based off of “Report: Suicide Deaths in Afghanistan Higher Than Murders, War Deaths Combined by Edwin Mora” Looking at the graph you see a tiny increase in the amount of suicides of 10 people from 2003 to 2004. Suicides are bad no matter how much the number of people are, however looking at my graphs and correlating it to other resources has enlightened me. There are not as many suicides in low income countries than there is in middle or high income countries.

          High income countries are what you can call the wealthiest. The country that has the most money, but does that mean the more money higher the suicide rates? Like many articles I have read for instance “ Why Are Suicides More Common In Richer Neighborhoods” by Josh Sanburn have said that most suicide rates come from people with more money. Now this may be talking about neighborhoods or people,  however neighborhoods coexist within a country, and people coexist within the neighborhood which will ultimately means the same thing. Now based off of graphical studies ( Figure 1)  I have seen that in many of the wealthiest countries I researched there is not an over exceeding amount of suicides.  Reading the article ( Why Suicides Are More Common in Richer Neighborhoods )you would think that Suicides basically only come from those people who have a higher income and nowhere else really. However, I found that to not be true. I have found that  suicides are high in high income countries, but they do not have the HIGHEST suicide rates like many acclaim. United States was the richest country of the countries I researched. I found that the United States have an income of 15,300, while it has 11.2 suicides per 100,000 people in the most recent year: 2004. ( Record: Figure 1 ) It has been made clear that STILL high income countries don’t have the highest amount of suicides, but they still have a pretty large amount. Suicide rates have jumped tremendously in the last 30 years according to “U.S. Suicide Rate Surges to a 30-Year High” by Sabrina Tavernise. Women in their middles ages tend to be the biggest group that suffer from suicides. I will say it affects women in their middle age the most normally during this time Women start to become mothers, go though manipulate and it creates a mid life crisis. This is what leads many Women to suicide. Through research I have gathered, especially in the United States who has the highest income suicide rates come from mid life crisis. Not because so many Rich people get tired of their life as Josh Sanburn implied in his article. Suicide rates are high in The United States, but they are not high as one other country.

      China is a middle income country that has an income per person of $5,680. The suicide rate however is 16.9 per 100,000 people. As I was hinting in my other graph analysis’s, suicide rates are the highest in the MIDDLE income countries. Now this is surprising because many other articles have swore up and down that High income countries, and low income countries have had the highest suicide rates. ( According to sites below. ) While in my research I have seen that that is not the case, it is the total opposite in fact. China is one of the highest suicidal countries in the world. ( Figure 1 ) It mainly comes from Women as it does in many other countries. Although, the reasons behind it is different. Women in China tend to commit suicide because many women are stressing, and people have diseases such as bronchitis and cancer. That causes women to end their life because of the pain and infliction they go through. This is shocking to me because so many articles I’ve read has said middle income countries aren’t really the ones affected by income. I personally think that this happens in middle income countries because the middle tries to live a higher income life acting as if they are rich, while kind of in reality many people still have an income that relates more to the low income pool of things. This makes a lot of sense, because they seem to stress between the two lives of high income and low income. It makes people become stressful, which may lead to being overwhelmed that may cause suicide. Along this graph I was able to see that the income level with the most suicides come from a middle income level instead of low or high.

           In conclusion, I have proved that Suicide rates are most excessive in the middle income countries instead of the high and low income countries. There has been multiple articles ( at the bottom of page )  that seems to think that middle income countries are the least of worries. My research has told me otherwise. Depending on the different countries you decide to study in depth, my conclusion may change but in these circumstances my theory remains.

Work Cited:

http://www.suicide.org/suicide-statistics.html#death-rates

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/22/health/us-suicide-rate-surges-to-a-30-year-high.html?_r=0

http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/22/health/suicide-rates-rise/

http://business.time.com/2012/11/08/why-suicides-are-more-common-in-richer-neighbor

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http://www.sras.org/how_does_income_affect_suicide_rates

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/09/suicide-rate-rich-neighborhoods_n_2102777.html

1) Describe your project.  - Our project is a SLA documentary. It is based around the entire school, and how the teachers feel about the school. It shows pictures of the school’s work, and some of the classes.

2) What did you learn while completing this project? I learned simple things about filming that I’ve never knew before. It taught me how to focus the camera on the objective and not zoom in and out because it messes it up, and etc.

3) What was the hardest part about completing this project?  The hardest part of this project was just the timing. We thought we had a finished project, then we analyzed it again and we felt like we should add more. If given more time I think this project would literally be a movie.

4) What was the most fun/exciting part? The most fun part of this project was interviewing the faculty members. You got to hear how they feel about the school, and that’s something instructors don’t do on a daily basis.

5) If you were to do this project over again, what would you do differently?

I would literally use all the time I get because this project takes a lot of time, and persistence.