For some reason, HIV/AIDS is most prevalent in the black race. Sixty percent of recorded diagnoses of HIV/AIDS in women were for African American women. Currently, it is the leading cause of death among African American women between the ages of 25-34. 

These illnesses weaken one’s immune system, attacking when one is vulnerable. The affected women and girls cannot fight back. They may feel helpless, maybe like their hands are tied behind their backs. They need to be able to have fun in their lives, and HIV hampers their abilities to do so. They have just the rights as any other girl or woman to live a happy and healthy life, but have been cursed, have been condemned into a life they don’t want to live through no fault of their own.

We don’t want these women and girls to waste their lives because of an illness. We need to raise awareness and conquer the illness, so they can all live their lives to the fullest.

This interim, I believe I was told to try to capture emotions in a different way, to not use a direct approach to emotions. It was also suggested that I work with different people as subjects and try to depict their emotions as opposed to a representation of an emotion on my face. I did this with a couple of my entries, though one is completely out of my head. However, I also took a completely different approach to the concept of emotion. The feelings are abstract, and what better way to represent them then in an abstract piece? I was just really drawn to making abstract work recently.

Sherman was born in on January 19th, 1954, in a suburb of New York City. As a child, Sherman did not know she would be an artist, as she wasn’t born into an artistic family. She began to get interested in art during high school, and her parents were supportive when she said she wanted to go to art school. She started college at the State University College at Buffalo and chose to pursue painting. Not a long while after she realized painting didn’t suit her and that photography was the way to go. After her college graduation, she began her most famous artistic pursuit – Untitled Film Stills, where she’d take photographs of herself dressed in various costumes in various settings, taking the roles of anonymous film characters. This series started in 1977, and was finished in 1980. She continued to work throughout the 80s and 90s, and is still working today. She intends to challenge cultural stereotypes, particularly those of women. 
I am currently exploring self-portraiture. Cindy Sherman presents some interesting ideas for me to think about. Whenever I take a picture of me, and then draw it, it always ends up still looking like me. I don’t even try to make the photograph not look like me. However, I never intend for my drawings to be literal self-portraits. They aren’t of emotions that I have, just representations of the emotions. This is a lot like what Sherman does, but she pulls it off much better, putting herself in different costumes and in different situations – which is something that I haven’t thought of doing – and I should, as that would probably improve the quality and variety of my works.

I chose to juxtapose Becky onto clouds because of the surreal atmosphere I believe it would create. She is placed on the left because there were clouds she could "sit" on that were in the right plane. Although I have not started painting the background, I believe it will be helpful to me because I am not very adept at combining photographs in my head.