Capstone Project Proposal Draft

Name of student: Ray Palacios Date: 10/10/23

Teacher: Mr. Green Block: D

The Capstone strand I have chosen is: Product

Proposed title for my Project Proposal: (write the proposed title for your Capstone Project in one clear
sentence):
My capstone will be two ceramic masks, one being a traditional Chinese tiger mask, and the other being a
traditional Nicaraguan Gueguense mask mixed in with tarot cards to represent the emotion of the wearer.

What is your inquiry question that interests you for further research? It should be a question that connects with
a purpose, passion or personalized area of interest for you. This is a question that you cannot just google an
answer for. Please see examples from your Capstone booklet.

What do we learn from this product and what is the meaning behind it?

Rationale/context: Detail your reasons for choosing this inquiry question. Explain WHY you are choosing to
investigate this topic as a major area of focus. How does this area of inquiry connect to your passion(s),
purpose? Why is it of personal interest to you?

The context behind this question and why I decided to choose it is because I understand that at first glance
when looking at my project people will be confused and not understand it that well if they are not into art or
abstract things. My inquiry question answers all the why’s and what’s they might have about my project.

Background: What background knowledge/connections/prior learning do you have in this area of inquiry?

I have a lot since most of this information are facts I’ve learned along the way by asking questions about
other people’s culture and understanding it well. I am also an artist, so explaining art and my reasoning
behind it has always been something I’ve had to do for everything I’ve ever created.

Career connections: What is your intended career area at this point in time? What connections does this
inquiry question have to your life, academic and/ or career goals?

My intended career point is going into visual arts and expressing myself with art in any way that is three
dimensional instead of 2d. This connects to my academic goal because its helping me practice my skills
and refine them for when I go to college. All this practice will help me refine my skills and perfect them as
much as I can in a high school setting until college.

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Interdisciplinary and core competencies connections: What subject areas and core competencies will
be connected with your project? Outline and explain the connections.

One of the main core competencies I’ll face is communication and time management. With my project, I’m
going to have to talk to other people that are not just my mentor to get all the feedback I can and also make
sure my project is respectful. I struggle sometimes with communicating what needs to be done so this will
be something that I will struggle with along with the fact I have a tight deadline to meet but it will definitely
help me with those skills and improving them.

Capstone Presentation medium: select one or more project mediums you wish to use to present your
project. Outline and give details about how you will present your project once completed. You may use a
combination of mediums.
o Electronic portfolio: Prezi or PPT
o Physical portfolio
o Website
o imovie presentation
o YouTube channel

I will be using an electronic PPT as well as a physical portfolio. Since my masks will be tangible items I
would like to present them physically and explain them with them in my hands instead of a picture, but I
would like to present other things like past pictures and explanations on the screen.

Description of my Capstone project. Specific Project Details of the Capstone Project: what will you
research, create, study, produce, solve, investigate? What product will be produced at the end of this
project for evaluation. Write a one-page description outlining your proposal.

but I’ve always found emotions on statues or non-human things to be extremely fascinating. I chose my
own culture [Nicaraguense] to make one of the masks based off my own culture, and Chinese because it’s
a culture and ethnicity I’ve always felt connected to and am interested in learning about. The tarot cards
are more of a spiritual thing since I’ve always been connected with that, too. I want to show people that
you can show emotion in so many different ways and use other people’s culture as an inspiration and
appreciate it, not appropriate it. I will be researching a lot about my own and the different culture as well as
talking to people about their culture so they can tell me if its appropriate or not to be doing these things and
if I’m representing their culture properly. By the end of this I hope to have two different masks of two
different cultures that will have little to no mistakes and be able to hold them without them feeling fragile
but at the same time not too heavy and have a smooth texture to them. I hope to complete this in a timely
manner so I will have extra time to be able to read through my project and see if there’s any flaws so I can
fix them before presenting them. I hope to have people understand why I decided to go with the abstract
look of animal faces instead of human ones, because I feel that human faces expressing emotions is
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 something we see all the time and it has become something common especially with statues around. They
are usually human faces presenting some type of emotion but I want to stand out and do something more
abstract by making these faces animals but still presenting emotions through them and in different ways
with the tarot cards. Tarot cards represent emotions or a certain state of someone’s life or career so I plan
to incorporate that into my masks to make people think “Why did this person add that?” and think about
just why things are how they are. I want to extend peoples thinking when it comes to art and make them
think about why I made the choices I did with my art piece and make them understand that even if I’m not
apart of this culture, I can still appreciate it and show people that you can appreciate a culture and be
inspired by it in so many ways that is respectful and not appropriating the culture that inspired you. It will
definitely be a difficult thing to accomplish with such little time and so many ideas and roadblocks that I will
have to face as well as testing my own skills and showing them in my art work but I’m willing to plan out my
idea enough so that I will be prepared for every situation and always have a plan B even if things don’t go
my way. I want to try and perfect my skills as much as I can and even improve them while working on this
project as I document my journey and how I will be making these masks step by step. By the end of this, I
want to have two masks: One that represents anger, and one that represents betrayal in an abstract way
and for it to fit someone’s face. They will not be wearable, but they will be tangible and be able to be
touched to show that your emotions are something you feel and should not be something you wear and
control you.

Resources/ Technology/Skills: Make an assessment of the resources, technology and skills you will
need to be able to complete this project. What is your plan to be able to access/learn all of the resources
necessary to achieve completion of this project? Detail your plans.

The main resource I will need is clay. I will get this material from the ceramics classroom and be using
everything there that is provided for me as I have been taking that class for about three years now. I will
be needed a phone for references and digital communication, the skills I will need is designing something
that looks nice and is respectful as well as pleasing and little to no mistakes. I will have to have a lot of
patience and care with my project that will be challenging at times.

Mentors/Community Connections: What types of mentor(s)/community connections will you need to

help you complete your capstone project? How will your mentor(s) help you? What is your plan to access
the mentorship/community connections necessary for this project?

My mentors will be teachers at our school: Loepkey and Mr. Dykman, They will help me by providing
feedback and extra material to help me with my project and constructional criticism to make sure my
project is the best I could make it with my ability. I will be talking to them during my study block, but also
talking to them through teams to reach out to them from home.

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Project limitations: What are some project limitations and potential obstacles that you foresee that might
affect progress with your Capstone Project?

Some obstacles I will face is time. Clay takes a long process time to get perfect and there are always
things that I could simply not avoid, like if my clay explodes while its being fired. But one full sculpture
takes about three weeks to complete and paint so time will always be something I will have to be aware
of and try to take it into consideration as much as I can do not rush myself but to make sure I meet the
deadline.

Other considerations: List and detail any other related information/ considerations about your project
that you feel should be included in your project proposal.

N/A

References: Provide a literature review of 5-10 PEER REVIEWED ACADEMIC references: research,
videos, etc. that offer some preliminary research you have done for your project that shows you are able
to access the key information that you will need to be able to complete this project/work. Your list should
be written using correct APA formatting.

Che-ming Yang, 2009

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?
hl=en&as_sdt=0,5&qsp=1&q=cultural+chinese+masks&qst=ib#d=gs_qabs&t=1697055698026&u=%23p
%3DtGw0kHIzQ4IJ

Ali Behnood, 2018

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?
hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=clay+techniques&oq=clay+tec#d=gs_qabs&t=1697055865511&u=%23p
%3DNp6sJgimnb0J

Paul Edward Montgomery Ramírez, 2021

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?
hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=el+gueguense&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1697055917220&u=%23p%3DH9A0hqi-
1GoJ

Karyn Pravossoudovitch, Francois Cury, Steve G Young, Andrew J Elliot, 2014

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?
hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=the+meaning+of+the+colour+red&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1697056096982&u=
%23p%3DsPOYS2juThoJ

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L Hendricks, Sam Bore, Dean Aslinia, Guy Morriss, 2013
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?
hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=how+can+rage+negetively+affect+you&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1697056238797
&u=%23p%3DEJ0AX6cb_AwJ

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