What do I do well? (strength)
I am very goal oriented. Once I figure out what I need to do, I am very efficient at determining what needs to be done to accomplish the task and allotting time, resources, and energy to accomplish the goal. This often helps me to produce work when I feel like I am loosing steam. It also keeps me from getting disorganized and flustered.
While for the most part being goal oriented and motivated is positive and a helpful strength to have, it also serves as a hindrance. I find that I often become so set in my path of completion that I become closed to outside ideas, suggestions, and energy. I also become closed to my own new ideas. This can obviously be detrimental to the work and frustrating for me (and those around me, no doubt). However, acknowledging this steadfastness and its sometimes negative effects is the first step to becoming more fluid and accepting that fluidity into my life and work.

What can I improve upon? (weakness)
I can improve upon my assumptions of meaning. Often when I am working on a piece I think that certain aspects of the work, be they symbols, figures, treatment of subject matter, etc. carry meaning that I intend. I think that people will understand these messages. However, I often have trouble stepping outside of myself and seeing that certain meanings might not be accurately assigned or understood the way I want them to be. This issue comes from many sources: being over confident with my grasp of visual rhetoric, overlooking the context that every person brings to their individual reading of my work, and insufficient reading of art theoretical sources.
This weakness not only affects my production of work but it negatively affects how I talk about my work. When speaking about my work, I often think that I am getting a clear message across but in reality I am not really conveying what I want.
In order to work on this weakness I have a few things planned. I need to read more art theoretical sources including but not limited to Theories and Documents of Contemporary Art: A Sourcebook of Artists’ Writings. I also plan on spending more time in the library browsing and reading contemporary art publications. This will help me clarify my language. I will also continue to pinpoint words that specifically clarify or cloud my grasp and discussion of meaning. I will then research, reflect upon and define these words for myself. A general area that I need to improve upon is my breadth and depth of reading. I think that if I really work on expanding and carefully choosing what I read, I will have more knowledge and information about meaning and therefore will be able to make more educated decisions about word choice.

What’s next? (future)
This semester I really want to concentrate on developing fluidity and confidence in my work. As I mentioned before, I often get very set on a specific idea or path and am unable to accept other ideas or directions that I may try. I truly think that fluidity is the perfect term for what I want to accomplish in this regard. I want to be able to act like water, to flow forth and explore every crack and crevice, but recede again if necessary, to divide myself and my energy in order to explore different ideas or embodiments of ideas, etc. This semester (and beyond) I want to focus on allowing myself to become more fluid.
In addition, I want to graduate in May knowing that I am a skilled photographer that can approach my ideas calmly without fear that my lack of skill or technical difficulties will serve as insurmountable obstacles.