Katie Skinner
My shrine is focused on a raccoon, whose name I have yet to come up with, who is up on a raised platform that is slowly being invaded/taken over by Kudzu and English Ivy. Raccoons, in general, are very important to me because I feel like I like them the most. They are clever, yet silly, and dumb at the same time. They are often associated with chaos, and I feel like I can relate to them (at least people who know me well enough can agree). They are also just special to me because they’re cute and I also have worked on representations of them since high school, so there are certain sentimental reasons behind it too. But the main reason is that I feel as though they are, in a way, a representation of myself and simply because I love raccoons. Additionally, the Kudzu and English Ivy are an actual representation of how many of the native North American wildlife is being taken over and forced out by invasive species. The metaphor that I am primarily going for is that the vines are a representation of all negative, harmful, and stressful things that are trying to get to me and take me over, whether that be outside forces or something I caused myself. But I also want to, and not necessarily from a white guilt perspective, just a blunt and factual way, that while at the same time I might see a raccoon as a representation of myself, I acknowledge that I am in a way an invasive species too but that is not my focal point of my piece. I want to represent the raccoon by its iconic imagery, i.e. ringed tail and masked face, which might mean I’ll need to either dye part of it or find some other way of conveying that. The vines are physically reaching for him (I know I said him but I just feel like those are his vibes, it’s not really a commentary on my gender) and the leaves mimic those of the actual plant.