Artifact: Leah Roper

For this project, I wanted to pay tribute to my dad.  Throughout my childhood, I've seen many things that causes fear to this day in my life.  Because I never had a moth figure since my mom was never around, my dad filled every position he could to give both my sister and I the best childhood we could have.  I don't have many memories of my childhood, so there are few I cherish.

I mainly focused on shoes that I had growing up, the white ones, and the pink shoes (below) my sister loved dearly.

I then used a hanger I had as a young girl that my dad gifted me for my 5th birthday.

Finally, I took an image of my favorite writing my dad has ever given me.  

My final piece was a combination of these images to create a sentimental feeling.

I save ever card he has ever given me for times I miss him the most since he travels a lot for work.  This was written in a letter he gave me as I moved into college, here at App.  He knew I was frightened by the thought of both being away from home and starting somewhere completely new to start a new life for myself.  This writing is very important to me because of the sentimental value and is what I got as a tattoo to remember the times that I'm scared to just push through.  As both of us are religious, he was specifically referring to 1 John 4:18 ("There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.") I wanted to create a piece that not only gave a feeling of love, but also represents the joy my dad has brought in my life and to show how I wouldn't be the person who I am today if he didn't take control of the situation from when both my sister and I were younger.