Id i op a thy

Id i op a thy

A disease or condition that arises spontaneously or for which the cause is unknown.

Id i op a thy was the title of my daughter's college senior project. Her project, along with thirteen other senior projects, was exhibited in The Art Gallery at Florida Gulf Coast University and the opening reception was held on April 18th, from 5:00 to 7:00 PM.

The Colonel, his parents and I attended the reception and when we walked through the door the first exhibit our eyes (and everyone else's) fell upon was Yam's project. Seeing her artwork displayed in a professional manner was impressive. I felt so proud of her.

Yam was diagnosed with idiopathic scoliosis (abnormal curvature of the spine) when she was younger and had to wear a brace at night for about two years, so she chose to create a crooked spine for the sculpture part of her project. The spine was made out of metal, wrapped in wire and painted.

For the other part of her project, Yam painted spines on the backs of three of her friends and then photographed them. She then had the photos enlarged, printed on canvas and then stretched the canvases.

All of the seniors were dressed up for the opening and answered questions anyone had about their projects.

I enjoyed looking at all of the other senior projects. I heard many positive comments from others concerning Yam's project and some of her professors were there and congratulated her on a job well done.

There was a nice crowd in attendance and yummy finger foods and drinks were available.

The senior projects were all so different and interesting.

Everyone went into another room where all of the artists had to stand up and talk about their projects for about two minutes. It was good to hear directly from the artist what their projects were about and what was the idea/force behind its creation. Yam said her "autobiographical" project explored her hidden quirk (scoliosis) and she hoped the project would draw attention and encourage viewers to think about their own quirks.

It was a very nice evening. We all were and are very proud of Yam and she was very happy to see her dad, mom and grandparents there.

The following week Yam was going to have a review of her senior project with three professors. The review would last a couple of hours. Yam said she was a little nervous about it but I told her she knew her project intimately and would have no problem talking about it (Yam did say two of the professors liked to talk and she would let them burn up some of her review time doing just that). The review went very well.

Note: Yam and her senior project were featured in May's Gulf Coast Times, a 32-page magazine-style publication.