Building an AP Portfolio
The AP portfolio is a college credit course that can be taken in most American high schools, and it’s know for its strict deadlines and ridiculously quick pace. The portfolio centers around one theme entirely up to your choosing. I scored a 5 (90-99%).
Choosing a theme is incredibly difficult. For a year before I took the class I thought I could prepare by choosing my theme early on. I had whole sketchbooks filled with lists of themes I could focus on, some basic, and some way too specific. It was hard not to fall into the common ones though, impacts of technology, covid, anxiety, blah blah. You can choose these themes of course, it’s just going to be an extra challenge to make it never seen before, or simply, yours. Having a bad theme is a death wish, and everyone in the class was pretty aware of that.
My number one rule, disregarding everything that everyone ever says about being “too cliche” or too “out there” is to make work centered around something you are passionate about. Whether you hate it with every bone in your body, whether you want to give it your heart, or if you always laugh really hard at it - that is your theme. I despised engineering, it made me feel disappointed in myself and mad at the world for making it harder for me. I also loved engineering… and that made me hate it even more… like a deep childhood love that found a way to break my heart every day and then give me a slice of cake in the form of a functioning robot arm. Anyways, I saw way too many people choose a topic that they had a few ideas about, but didn’t entirely care about what they were saying in the end and they got fully eye drooped bored. Their pieces reflected that.
That is the main reason I love the AP portfolio… when those last few weeks finally hit. No matter what your topic is, everyone, and I mean everyone, hits a wall. So, I started making trash paintings and I copped out. I no longer had the time to focus on tiny details and the most creative compositions. I worked fast, and on the spur of the moment, and I can say in complete confidence that these “cop outs” were my strongest pieces. They didn’t have vast background stories or specific end-goals, they were simply a reflection of how I felt. Simplicity. One was a quick painting of a back-facing girl looking at Rosie The Riveter, 2 hours tops. Another was an (overwhelmingly colorful) stippled portrait of a crying face, 1.5 hours. My favorite of the bunch, a painting of a lady in a rowdy blank conference room, 3.5 hours.
My teacher stopped me as I submitted the three in one weekend, and he said. “these… are so emotional.” and I was happy for a moment, then went back to feeling guilty because I had copped out.