Blog 5: Art book cover symbol

The symbol that I picked to for the cover of my art book was a skull. In junior high school I started growing a fascination with skulls. I began buying items with skulls on them, such as sweaters, stickers, phone covers, and shoes. I did not necessarily have a reason for why I liked them, I just did. My best friend since the sixth grade was Martin Estrada. He and I used to always hang out together, in school and outside of school. His parents were extremely religious and every time I would go over to his house and eat dinner, we would say a prayer at the dinner table. I did not want to be disrespectful, so I always went along with it. Martin’s parents started noticing my new trend of me liking and wearing a lot of skulls. One day at dinner, Martin’s dad put me on the spot and said “why do you wear so many skulls, do you worship the devil or something?” I was very upset that he asked such an ignorant question. Obviously I did not worship the devil. From that day on, I realized that it does not matter what others think of me, and that I should not be afraid of who I am or how I choose to express myself. Other people’s opinions are irrelevant and I should just live my life without worrying about other people. Although I do not wear skulls anymore and grew out of that phase during late High School, skulls will always personally symbolize to me that I should be who I am without worrying about judgments from others.