...and time goes on

Today was the first official Monday of the school year, but my LAST first Monday of the school year. It's funny being a senior, everyone likes to remind you that every "first" of the year is actually your last. I guess that's just how time works.

So the theme of today is time.

Today I received my creative journal back from my art teacher after she had taken it home to grade over the weekend. When she gave it back to me, she had nothing but positive things to say, which is always a wonderful thing to hear when you've poured your heart and spent all your time on a project.
Before I show the pictures and explain my individual thought processes, I would like to explain a little bit about this project.

My summer assignment was simple: get a sketchbook and fill 20 pages however you want. My teacher always assigned a 9x12 or 11x14 sketchbooks, but I much prefer to work small. I bought a 6x8 and started my project about mid-summer. I find that best and most inspiring ideas come when I am working within one common theme because it gives me a place to branch out from.
My whole summer, I couldn't stop thinking about time. The mysterious thing about time is that it only exists in the past and future, the present is so fleeting that it can barely receive any significance. Everything in our life is divided into these 2 categories, the past and the future. So concrete is the past, so ambiguous is the future. Sometimes I find myself obsessing over time and what it actually means. Soon enough, this concept of time evolved into a study of the process of life, for time is only measured when there is life to compare it to.

Time and Life and Death are huge impacts lately on my artwork only because I find this endless cycle fascinating. These were the themes of my creative journal this summer.
But one poem in particular really inspired a lot of the work in this journal, and that is the poem "Death" by Percy Bysshe Shelley. It's a beautiful poem highlighting the themes I just discussed. You will find it several times within my work. (Also, I hope nobody finds this morbid! I really am not a morbid person, it's just a theme for my artwork).
(*NOTE: All quotes within the book are not mine and are taken from sources I believed to be excellent examples with a theme of time.
**Also, I made everything in this journal myself, excluding images taken from other sources, assortement of media materials and paper.)

And without further ado, here are the pictures I took today on my iPhone (sorry about any bad quality):

 Front Cover. Quote: "Lost time is never found again." -Benjamin Frankilin

 Front pages (all numbers are hand cut and ribbon is in the back)

 Quote: "first... our hopes, and then our fears" -"Death," Percy Shelley

 Quote from John Keats. Skeleton inspired by the "Bodies" exhibit I saw recently in Chicago.

 Hand embroidered stop watch.

 Quote (slightly modified) from "On Death" by Percy Shelley.

 The paper inside the envelope quotes " Maybe none of us really understand what we've lived through, or feel we've had enough time." -from Never Let Me Go (movie)

 Inside the treasure chest is part of the dictionary definition of time.

 Quote on first page from poem "Death," by Percy Shelley. Quote on second page from the Curious Case of Benjamine Button (movie).

 Writing on tree from the song "Good Riddance," by Green Day

 (Sorry! Missing a page in here!)

(Missing another page in here!) But that is actually a real mirror with a base I made of paper. The quote on the 2nd page is from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (movie).

Yes, those are real pressed roses! I feel that the quote fit perfectly: "I was just thinking how nothing lasts, and what a shame that is" because just a few days before, those rose betals were brilliantly red.
The poem on the last page is "Death," by Percy Shelley.

Thanks and I hope you liked my work!