1. Mind, Body & Spirit:
Depicting People as Animals
Jaquita L.C. Hawthorne
2. ME
• I consider myself a spiritual person.
• Being a spiritual person to me is being
connected with all living creatures.
• I got interested in spirit animals in grade
school
– Research Project
– Spiritual Animals
3. My Spirit Animal?
• Have you ever had a
strange encounter with
an animal?
• There are different ways
to figure out your spirit
animal, but you need to
have an open mind.
– Pay attention to recurrent
appearances of a particular
animal in your life
– Consult with a Shaman
– Recognize the wisdom and
intelligence of animals
4. Spirit Animal ?
In the world of spirit animals, animals
symbolize:
• Characteristics of our personality
• Skills or traits that we have or that we want
to gain
• A situation or emotions
• Spirit animals can also offer guidance and
understanding
– A phase of ourselves that needs to be explored
more
– Situations or environments in our everyday life
that has a strong emotional impact
5. Artists frequently use
animals as subject matter in
their art. Through time
animals have appeared in
paintings, sculptures, and
prints. Animals are also
symbolic. Many cultures
through the ages have
observed specific animals
as in place of
gods, power, the
6. Thesis
The concept of spiritual animals
inspires me to focus my creative
work on them. In particular, I
am thinking through the
problem of how to portray
friends using animal metaphors.
I hope that my project will help
viewers to identify animal traits
like I do within my figure
drawings, while showing the
8. Native Culture
I am proud of my native heritage. Knowing
my family history helps me to understand
myself, and I thus decided to focus my
research this semester on Native culture
generally and spirit animals specifically.
Native homes, plants, weather, and animals
are very important to Native peoples. Even
though Natives hunt and kill animals we still
see them as spirits. In the past animal skin
and hides were used as clothing and
9. Respect For Nature
“Every seed is awakened and
so is all animal life. It is
through this mysterious
power that we too have our
being and we therefore yield
to our animal neighbors the
same right as ourselves, to
inhabit this land.” -Sitting Bull
10. Almost there
I started thinking about my project last
summer. I knew I wanted to use skills and
techniques that I learned in figure
drawing classes. I also knew that I
wanted to use my friends as models to
show their different personalities.
11. Figure drawings done as
part of coursework at
Ripon College.
On the left is a selfportrait by
Rembrandt, and on the
right is a sketch of Adam
for the Sistine Ceiling by
Michelangelo.
12. “for Color girls who have Considered
Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf”
A Series of 20 Poems written by Ntozake Shange in 1975
– Experimentally choreographed poem.
– Focus on issues women of color go through.
– Watching the movie by Tyler Perry in 2009 I was
inspired to do my project on it, adapted to issues that
female students deal with here on the Ripon College
campus.
13. “aura lanterns”
• This Idea was like a puzzle
missing pieces.
• I loved the idea of using some of
the skills I learned from working
on plays at the college.
• I wanted to do a full figure
drawing of each one of my
friends on each side with their
own aura color
• ………..I thought it still needed
work
14. Other Ideas
• A collage of figure drawings in different
perspectives.
• Having a model represent different
elements.
• “Line of Fate” showing how people are
connected.
• Then I thought about Spirit Animals.
17. Rebecca Nieves
Bats are very
nurturing, family
oriented, highly
social, and
understanding to
members of their
group.
Natives acknowledged
that the bat was highly
sensitive to their
surroundings and for
that reason was
considered a symbol of
18. Lindsey Dawson
Natives believe parrots show
intelligence, good
temperament, and a sense of
international relations.
Parrots teach people to value
the color, the joy, and the magic
in life.
Parrots teach listening to all of
nature and awakening to the
language within using insight for
more open communications.
19. Final Project
For my project I am considering using the
figure drawing skills that I have learned over
the years to depict my friends using animal
metaphors that I choose for them. My
20. Artists on the Same wave
length as me
These artists, from left to right, are Elizeabeth Beals, Ina
Woolcott, Zakhar Krylov, and Laura Frisk.
