Totem: A Junior Experimental Project by Emma Orner (2013)

The picture is a coffee cup with different layers of designs like a totem pole. The image encompasses the individuality behind inanimate objects. It depicts how personality can be attributed to more than just the self. Everything one touches, or personalizes, represents an aspect of the self. Even a simple coffee cup touches an aspect of your personality. This has always intrigued me, how we make everything our own.

Totem was made in photoshop through a collection of photos. I decorated nearly 10 coffee cups with Sharpies, each a different and unique design. After acquiring a collection of coffee cups, I took pictures of them in the Freestyle Studio and cut them together in Photoshop. The process of decorating and editing the photo took nearly three weeks. The inspiration for the project rooted from drinking coffee one day at Freestyle. I saw the cup as a canvas and decided to draw on it.