Our final project of the year is complete! Although it was a great project I have to say that I need this summer break to reset before my final year of high school. I look forward to what we will do next year as a class with fewer covid restrictions. This project was a perfect way to end because we got to fine-tune it to our interests. Let me tell you what I did.

We started our project by learning about “Crazy Ones” in our history. People like Tesla, Mozart and all the other people in the apple ad and more. I enjoyed the discussions in class on these people. Defining what “Crazy Ones” are and debating between my piers was really interesting. After getting our definitions locked down, for the most part, we watched two films about Mozart and Gandhi, both of who were especially extraordinary. We got the chance to share our learning about these two in Socratic seminars. In the first Socratic seminar I didn’t contribute to the conversation. I had lots of information and I paid attention but I found using the cards we were given challenging. English is already something that I find challenging, so having to come up with a valuable thing to say, figure out how the card I had wanted me to say it and then finally say it was hard. Usually, the conversation would have already moved on. Luckily in the next seminar, I had the chance to show my improvement. We didn’t have any cards to follow this time and could also ask our own questions. I enjoyed this seminar and I think I contributed some of the best questions that day.

The Gandhi film.

Now that we had done the learning part of this project It was time for me to start the final part. I learned that the goal of this project, for our final exhibition, was to research and select an impact maker in our community and then design a contemporary portrait for them. I went through several different ideas for my impact maker and was actually one of the last people to choose someone. I think taking more time worked out well. I not only found someone who I could connect with, but also someone who was very unknown. To me, this made researching them interesting, although maybe more challenging. I reached out to Mt. Seymour and later the holly burn Heritage society to see if they could help me but unfortunately, none got back to me. Despite this, I still found enough information to put together a write-up for my impact maker and create his portrait. The person I landed on was Harald Enqvist. He is the founder of Mt. Seymour. Here’s a quick summary of him.

Impact: Harald Enqvist founded Mt. Seymour ski resort in 1938. It was his determination, vision and incredible effort that helped cut the first trails on the mountain side, build the first lodges and install the chairlifts and rope tows. Harald also started one of the first downhill ski races in the area, a race that still is going on today. By giving north Vancouver their first ski experiences and races, a thriving ski community was made. Ski shops opened all over the mainland to help people with their skiing passions, creating the ski industry in Vancouver. Overall his contributions are many of the reasons skiing is so popular on the northshore. My Connection: I have been skiing on mount Seymour since I was 3 years old. I have had a seasons pass their every year. Skiing is probably the most important part of my life behind my family. It’s fair to say that Haralds contributions to the ski community is part of the reason I am a skier today so I am very connected to him through the impact he made.

The portrait I decided to make for him was an animated drawing. I thought that this would be different from most other people’s ideas. It would also help interest, and hold my audience’s attention, something we focused on in our past projects. It ended up taking me a long time to create something I was happy with, especially because I am not the most talented artist.

Overall it was one of my most successful projects of the year and hopefully a good sign for what could come next year in PLP. I enjoyed all the conversations I got to have in this project, and the opportunities to be creative. I’d love to see more projects where our mediums can all be so different for our final product.