• Carnival Mirror is a flexible, portable, unbreakable, distortion mirror that you can mount on any wall, door or flat surface. With ease you can bend this mirror in hundreds of different ways to create thousands of optical effects, limited only by your imagination, some of these include;

• THIN, FAT, SHORT, TALL, WEIRD, CRAZY, SCARY, FUNNY, REALLY FUNNY, FALL DOWN ON THE FLOOR FUNNY, MULTIPLE PARTS, MISSING PARTS, HUGE PARTS

CONTEXTUAL REVIEW

​This paper is an analysis of the progress that I have made in my course work, and how this has impacted my development on creativity, ability to deal with complex factors and artistic confidence. In the analysis, I have discussed the experiences that I had why doing part one of the assignment. I have also analyzed my practices in the completion of that project and how this impacted the use of my strengths. This contextual review explains my experience and how it has contributed to my personal development in the field of arts and design.

Experiences gained

In part one, I did two projects. The first project was an assessment of both my inner behavior and outwards. I looked in the mirror and tried to express what I saw. The analysis presented a distorted image of myself, which is different from real life. The experience here was on coming up with a creative way to analyze me. For the second project was the creation of a portfolio. I created one for African tribes, where I discussed their way of life and brought out a development spirit feeling. In this, I learned how to be creative in search of topics to involve in art and design.

Behaviors and approaches

​The projects were created in a way that not only was intended to solve the requirements but also engage in a way that builds creativity. I sought a creative approach in handling the projects whereby I went beyond to search on the best most innovative ways to manage them. In project one, I discovered that the best way to analyze myself was by looking at it like I was explaining someone else hence used the mirror to create another person. In the second project, I sought an approach that will not only help create a portfolio but look into an exciting aspect.

Influences

​In project one, the choice of a mirror was influenced by the works of Taylor in his writings on ‘The moral mirror of Roman art’ (Taylor et al., 2008 p12). The ideology helped create another person who I was able to discuss. The mirror has been used in art as a way of reflecting on the deeper inside of a person (Hartl, 2016. p385-391). The thought created by the idealism that comes with the mirror influenced the way I handled the first project. Several factors influenced the decision for the second project. One is the exciting livelihood of the African people. Despite many issues in their societies, they still live in closely socially constructed groups (Wangui, 2018. P23-59) Another factor is the connection between the African tribes (Larmer et al. 2017. P701-706). This connectedness creates an excellent theme for art and design.

Review

​I managed to create creative ways of handling the projects. The designs adopted not only helped me fulfill the requirements of the projects but they helped develop my artistic skills. Art and design are not just about fulfilling requirements, but also entails coming up with designs that are interesting to the readers. It also involves coming up with ideas that make it easy to understand the concept. In the process of the essay, I was able to come up with various approaches that can be reviewed and their implications used further in art. For example, explaining research can be done on the African communities and this can create topics to be used in writing.

​Creativity is a critical feature of art. It entails the development of new ideas in a way that is attractive and understandable. In the projects, I used creative means to handle the assignment requirements (Sawyer, 2017. pp.99-113). Creativity requires a lot of research to develop knowledge on various topics. The idea of African communities that I used in project two was promoted by further research into the subject to help create writing that helped satisfy the requirements of the assignment and at the same time, bring the intended perspective (Symons, 2018. pp.205-219).

​From the experiences gained in the course of the two projects, I have an idea of the areas in which I would like to specialize in. Both assignments taught me that writing is a very involving type of art that can be used to express both what the writer feels and the facts about something. It involves the use of research to ensure that the writings are drawn from facts. It also allows one to venture into a wide range of ideology which significantly helps improve a person’s ability to visualize things.

Bibliography

Folgieri, R., Dei Cas, L. and Lucchiari, C., 2017. Creativity in art and in problem solving tasks: a comparative analysis. In EVA (Vol. 113, pp. 56-61). Firenze University Press.

Gal, J., 2017. Pasteur and the art of chirality. Nature chemistry, 9(7), p.604.

Hartl, Anja. "Andy Lavender. Performance in the Twenty-First Century: Theatres of Engagement. London: Routledge, 2016, xii+ 235 pp.,£ 80 (hardback),£ 24.99 (paperback). Florian Malzacher, ed. Not Just a Mirror: Looking for the Political Theatre of Today. Berlin: Alexander Verlag/Live Art Development Agency, 2015, 195 pp.,€ 14.90 (paperback),€ 9.99 (PDF ebook)." Journal of Contemporary Drama in English 5, no. 2 (2017): 385-391.

Larmer, M. and Laterza, V., 2017. Contested wealth: Social and political mobilisation in extractive communities in Africa. The Extractive Industries and Society, 4(4), pp.701-706.

Oke, A. and Zimmermann, T., 2020. Looking in the mirror: capturing the facets of Wellcome Collection’s identity. Comma, 2018(1-2), pp.77-86.

Ruiz, I. and Vargas-Silva, C., 2017. The consequences of forced migration for host communities in Africa. Revue d'économie du développement, 25(3), pp.135-154.

Sawyer, R.K., 2017. Teaching creativity in art and design studio classes: A systematic literature review. Educational research review, 22, pp.99-113.

Symons, J., 2018. Untangling creativity and art for policy purposes: ethnographic insights on Manchester International Festival and Manchester Day Parade. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 24(2), pp.205-219.

Taylor, R.M. and Taylor, R., 2008. The moral mirror of Roman art. Cambridge University Press.

Wangui, E., 2018. Adaptation to Current and Future Climate in Pastoral Communities Across Africa. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Climate Science: 23-59.