CAPSTONE PROJECT
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

Reflecting Your
Cultural & Ancestral
History
Through
Art

How creating Artistic Imagery Strengthens Ancestral Connection and self-identity

An exploration of personal narrative and ancestral heritage through a creative process approach

This capstone project examines the exploration of personal narrative and ancestral heritage through a creative process approach.

Using arts-based research and A/r/tography methods, a series of artworks were created within this framework of narrative and genealogical investigation, which process and outcomes were analyzed to explore questions relating to self-identity perception, strengthening ancestral and heritage connections, understanding artistic conscientiousness, and how we may better appreciate others of different backgrounds and cultures.

Inspiration

Imagery is not only one of the most efficient ways to preserve

memories, but also a tool for remembrance, reflection, connection,

and understanding. As an artist, I have had experience to believe that creating imagery can be a more abstract and intentional way of meaning-making and self-reflection.

After reflecting this past year on the search for my relatives, I concluded that if I take this this concept of imagery and create a series of artistic projects that reflected a deeper study into ancestral research, I could attain a richer conception of self-identity and understanding. This initiated my Capstone Project. Aplin (2002) reflects on the idea that we are products of our personal and collective pasts. He elaborates that an essential component to obtaining a more comprehensive picture about one’s self, provides inspiration and emotional influence, is the family narrative.

I believe exploring self-identity within past cultural, ancestral, and living personal narratives enhances the formation of individual identity and can promote appreciation for cultural similarities and differences whether exploring alone or with a community.

MY NARRATIVE Some years back, I experienced a rewarding ancestral journey locating my lost but living Greek family. Many years ago, some of my Greek relatives left Athens, finally ending up in Mexico where my grandmother (my “Abuelita Maria”) and her children were born and raised. After a splintering family feud, my grandmother’s father and other relatives returned to Greece. His wife and their children remained in Mexico bitter and separated, refusing to talk about the fracture for decades long after. After finding my grandmother’s half brother Panos, my mother, members of her immediate family, and I have since visited Panos and other Greek family. This newfound knowledge affected my conception of self-identity and motivation for truth in finding and reaching out to my lost family. Aplin (2002) reflects on the idea that we are products of our personal and collective pasts. He elaborates that an essential component to obtaining a more comprehensive picture about one’s self, provides inspiration and emotional influence, is the family narrative. Bringing them, my grandmother, and her children together in physical and emotional reunion became one of the highlighted personal narratives of my life. When my mother, a Mexican immigrant to the United States, told me that I had Greek lineage, it was an eye-opening, self-reflective experience. At the time I found out, I was learning Ancient Greek in college, and had already for years been infatuated with Greek culture and history. This revelation impacted my self-identity significantly in that something I already loved became a part of me. I was suddenly inherently linked to it. Photos were taken to memorialize many of these special moments in Greece, as well as childhood experiences in Mexico where I still have family. Imagery is not only one of the most efficient ways to preserve memories, but also a tool for remembrance, reflection, connection, and understanding.

Reflective Artwork

Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.

- Gustav Mahler

A Far-Off Memory, 2023: The nature of unforgotten but distant memories

This scene reflects the reunification of our two families.

In my early 20s, I reached out to reconnect with the Greek side of my family. My mother, our family in Mazatlán, and I have now been to Greece to visit and reestablish our familial relationship.
This art reflection is a manipulated photo of a close moment with my Greek grand uncle Panos when I was in my 20’s. Panos is the half-brother of my grandmother (whom I called Abuelita María) who is the main subject in several of my artworks, including The Washing, Doña María, and Feeding the Family. In this scene, I am enjoying a meal with my grand uncle Panos who was born in Greece and lived in Athens. We share a table at a restaurant which looks out over the beautiful and ancient city.

Our memories as adults are often more realistic than those we have as children but, although we know we were present, it may feel unreal when looking back at our memories. It seems as if we have the perspective of an onlooker at a distance.

The Danish Bed, 2024: Tangible connections

The reflection artwork was inspired by an antique bed passed down through my paternal line. Simple but beautifully carved around the turn of the 20th century, this bed provided comfort to several generations along my paternal family tree line. I have been told by extended family that the bed was brought over by my Danish ancestors when they emigrated from Denmark to the United States in 1860. After doing some research, it is more likely that the bed was made after their arrival due to the difficulty of transporting large items by ship. I have spent many sick or inconvenient nights in the comfort of this special bed, as have guests visiting my home. It is a tangible ancestral connection I cherish.
I found that heirlooms such as this Danish bed are tangible links that allow one to connect to long-passed ancestors in unique ways. Though I do not have living memories of my early Danish family members, this artwork reflects how I still feel a connection to them when I think and wonder about all those who have seen and felt the beautiful wood frame and have shared the same perspective as me when I lie within it. I consider what their lives were like in the late 1800s, and what dreams they may have had, what hardships they had to endure to seek the comfort of this bed. To me, a physical link such as this bed is priceless for its value in united past and present understandings and relatability, and bringing a physical closeness that would be difficult to secure by any other means.

The Washing, 2024: A web of memories

When visiting my grandmother and family in Mazatlán, Mexico, where my mother was born and raised, I often saw Abuelita María washing clothes in an outdoor sink at the back of her small courtyard. The images within this memory have remained very clear to this day despite the memory’s commonplace nature. The recalled act of washing anchors the memory, creating a web effect where other details flow from to create a larger vivid memory.
The chore of handwashing, normally in an outdoor heavy-duty sink, is a common chore among Mexicans. I have seen my grandmother perform this task, and her adult daughters do the same in their own home. The large bright pink Zote soap, a popular soap in Mexico for handwashing, was striking to me for its color as well as its use since my immediate family did not wash clothes in the same way. Each visual cue leads to a new one, and each memory is expanded. This memory is captured with oil paint and in brighter colors to indicate that memories from early youth often stand out, possibly being enriched or even slightly exaggerated in how we may want to remember them.

Doña María, 2024: Past narratives for understanding

My Abuelita Maria was known as Doña María to everyone else outside of our family. It is not an endearing term like Abuelita, but a distinguished and respectable one given as a courtesy or honor which translates in English to Lady. This term offers a new perspective in which I can view her; not as a grandmother, but as a woman who lived a full life of which I was unaware. She would have dressed up to go out, taken trips to visit friends, enjoyed a life of pleasure when able. She was a beautiful young woman with aspirations and desires. I wanted to reflect some of this mindset in a collage piece.
This piece is a reminder to me that my grandmother had another life filled with rich experiences that I could relate to my own youth. It allows me to see her as a more complete individual and not just as my grandmother. This reflection is also one that widens the perspective and offers relatability.

Feeding the Family, 2024: Continuing the narrative by passing down tradition

I was born and raised in the United States to a mother who emigrated from Mazatlán, Mexico. I have established a very close connection to the people and culture of my Mexican heritage as I spent my summers as a youth in Mazatlán, and my mother and her family brought Mexican traditions into our home here in the United States. Having a multi-cultural heritage has been significantly instrumental in my appreciating how the world is interconnected with the traditions of multiple cultures through the intentional and unintentional sharing of cultural uniqueness.
Feeding the Family is what I consider my most cherished and personal of my reflective works as it is a meeting of generations. The two figures presented are my grandmother, whose father and family left for Greece, and my own daughter. The two never had a chance to meet as my grandmother had passed away prior to her birth, but this reflective art piece brings them together through the concept of active tradition. When I was a child, my grandmother would bring us home-made and store-bought treats from Mexico when she visited us in the United States.

Our favorite among the delicious food was her homemade sweet empanadas filled with homemade pineapple and guava jam. I have such a strong memory of the smell that wafted immediately after she opened the bag of pastries. When I make and eat these empanadas today, the nostalgia is an added ingredient. I make efforts to pass down traditions such as this with my own children. In this way, our heritage remains a living part of us.This painting has the most emotional connection to me. It unites my children with someone dear to me whom they had never had the opportunity to know. The painting illustrates the idea of a living heritage. It shows my daughter making her great-grandmother’s sweet empanadas, her own small working hands enveloped and guided by her great-grandmother’s own aged and experienced ones.I titled this painting Feeding the Family to not only inform the viewer of what food is being made, but to focus on the concept that feeding the family has a double meaning. This painting reflects the importance of heritage traditions being passed down to the younger generation, so as not to be lost but to be carried on through active practice. I like to imagine my grandmother being pleased that her great-granddaughter is actively passing on a tradition that represents care and love. Active preservation—practicing creating and sharing tradition and family culture—continually nourishes and strengthens ancestral bonds.

Research Goals & Questions

My goal within this project was to complete 5 thoughtfully created artworks that reflected personal and collective narratives found within my ancestral or cultural heritage exploration.

How can creating imagery that reflects one’s researched cultural or ancestral heritage reveal a better understanding of self-identity?
How do I perceive levels of my own conscientiousness and ability to construct meaning during the artistic process of creating work inspired by ancestry?
How does the final visually recorded narrative strengthen connection between myself and my lineage? Will this change how I view the complex uniqueness and cultural background of other individuals?

Research Methodologies

Arts-based research methodology, A/r/tography methodology, and Narrative Methodology

Data

Arts-based research is more often recorded through photographic means as well as reflective journaling, both written and sketched. For my self-reflective study, I applied these methods of arts-based research, journaling my family history research findings, sketching ideas that reflect these, photographing my creative process and progress, and recording my thoughts and reflections of such progress.

My Research and artistic data and their collection are the following:

I reflected on my own memories of when I was younger, relating to interactions I had with relatives and my experiences with them and their world. I compiled into a computer file photographs I found saved on my computer and on my Facebook albums. My notes and thoughts on these were recorded in my Reflection Journal for future analyzation.

I reflected on past narratives of ancestors and deceased family members that I personally knew, whose oral stories I remember being told of when I was younger.

When utilizing narrative methodology, recording and analyzing oral, written, and visual narratives were crucial methods to formulate research findings. I gathered information from researching narratives within my family trees on Ancestry.com noting events, people, and interesting stories that had been recorded in their profile. I recorded my findings in my Reflection Journal.

I collected contextual background and tangible aspects such as historical events and locations by researching locations and timeframes on Google relating to an ancestor. This helped me to better understand the world in which they lived in.

I recorded the creative process of my artworks with photographs, and included reflective questions in my Reflective Journal to answer as I made artistic choices, which personal reflexivity was integral to my creative brainstorming for each of my artistic reflection projects.

Significant Findings

There have been several significant findings resulting from the process and creative outcome of my artistic works and the research data woven into them.

Conscientiousness to Creative Productivity

Creating imagery reflecting my researched cultural or ancestral heritage has revealed a multidimensional self-concept over self-identity.

My reflective artwork helped me remember what was important to me, my desires, and interests, and how I belonged within a larger collective past. Understanding where I come from encouraged a healthier sense of self, and I learned from ancestor experiences that could help me navigate my own present life.

Conscientiousness to Creative Productivity

Artistic conscientiousness, meaning, and ability strengthened when set within the bounds of a more complicated identity search among my ancestry and living narratives. I found my applied methods to successfully transform memories and meaning-making into artistic imagery can be applied to art-making in general.I found that finding relatability, interest, and even oneself in applied research of a subject can lead to strong intrinsic motivation for artistic goals. These aspects naturally led to creative brainstorming and fueled my creativity and desire for visual communication in my artwork.
Finding connections with relatives and their narratives surprisingly instigated a sense of responsibility. I felt that as my artworks would be reflecting not only myself but their narratives and cultural history, I had a duty to create renderings that documented life and tradition to the best of my knowledge, understanding, and memory.
I also found individual aspects in artwork oftentimes morphed or were amended during the creative process. Tangential creativity could lead to pleasing outcomes in artwork over initial expectations and ideas. I had to be careful, however, to not lose sight of narrative goals.

Meaning-Making & Understanding:

While exploring memory and ancestral narratives for self-identifiers, I found that having my artistic goals framed within the narrative theme of my cultural and ancestral heritage allowed for a richer and more rewarding cognitive endeavor.
I found my artistic outcomes became visually recorded narratives that strengthened connection between myself and my lineage.
My narrative research on my relatives and the following creative process widened my perspective on how I view the complex uniqueness and cultural background of other individuals. It helped shed light on those with differing cultures and backgrounds, providing a deeper understanding of their humanity and offering relatability unforeseen prior to this project.

Written Capstone Research Project