For my first project of the year, I plan on making a big serving platter like dish. I want to connect it to my heritage by centering it around Africa. My first sketch was just a drawling of Africa with the countries outlined in it. I drew the flags for each country in it. My first plan was to make a 3-d model of it but I soon realized that it would be extremely difficult to do that because the edges were so rough a rigid. So, I decided to keep the concept but put it on a platter. I also was not fond of the fact that their were some countries that were significantly smaller than others, so in order to portray them all equally, I decided to put the flags around the rim of the platter. That left me to deciding what I was going to do with the outline of Africa. I chose to put it in the center of the platter and use a tribal print in it. Then, the negative space between the outline of Africa and the flags will be either white or black. I will choose this upon finishing the piece because I want to see how much if which colors will be present, so I can sort of balance it out. For instance, if there’s a lot of reds, blues,and blacks I will use white; however, if there are a lot of oranges, yellows, and greens I will use black because I think it will make it pop more. My inspiration came from things I have just associated with African culture. I also wanted to make it on something that everyone will see. I hope that when put see this art piece they can sense the pride I hold in my heritage. The reason why I am so adamant about it is that I have been told all my life that I’m not “black enough” which is awful to tell someone. So, recently, I have been trying to connect more with my heritage because I think it’s a beautiful thing.