Reflection

During my trip to Taiwan, I learned that the extreme weather conditions created abrupt changes to the growth of papayas; therefore, finding sweet papayas in food stalls became challenging. Because of this experience, I was inspired to illustrate the bittersweet feeling I encountered when discovering that my favorite childhood fruit was slowly fading away. For the background, I used the printmaking technique, where one can only use the linoleum block once after it's been carved, to symbolize how I only truly tasted papayas once during my childhood. I transformed the falling seeds into bubbles to reflect small hopes for the future generations that are grasping onto the hope of sweet papaya. Being creative through art has made me feel more open to being vulnerable and express my emotions I don't always know how to say. Creativity allows me to hold onto fading memories and engrave them into an art piece. Through this year's theme, I began to learn that nature not only exists in landscapes, but in smaller details like the taste of a fruit, the act of remembering, and the attempt to pass down something precious in family generations. The message I wanted to depict was that not everything is permanent and can eventually melt away unless we recognize its beauty and hold onto it with hope.