Hello!
My name is Kanika, and welcome to my portfolio!
For so long I put off the task of making this site ( but really making it known to the public that I have a personal site that can be explored ) because nothing I did was ever really good enough. I hid behind the expectations of others and myself, and the joy of the journey was lost on me.
I’m happy to report that those limiting beliefs no longer limit me! I am free!
I hope to use this blog and website to showcase my different interests and explorations as an artist and creative, but also to share more about the way I think and see the world. I have always wanted to document the story of my life and for a long time I wasn’t sure about how I could do that. But more than that, I wasn’t sure about what my role in this world could be until recently while I was going through old family pictures.
My mom found her old HP laptop from 2005 and it was full of, what felt like, my childhood in digital form. I was tasked with transferring all the photos into safer and more accessible reserves. Considering how much effort the fans were putting in to keep the hardware cool, this was an urgent request from my mom. I must say the build quality is fire though…that laptop is not breaking anytime soon. Anyways, I had to go UX Designer mode to diagnose all the issues that were making it hard for me to complete the task. I realized the display couldn’t go to sleep mid transfer and that I had to format the usb before use! I was able to transfer all 17,000 photos to a usb drive and now these photos and videos can be safely distributed to any family member that wants a trip down memory lane. :3
So when did I realize my role?? My purpose??
Well, while the pictures transferred and I waited, I wondered what story I could tell with all of this footage. I love my family and I love the journeys we’ve been on. All of the ups and downs have been beautiful; riding this rollercoaster together has been the best gift of all. I want them to know how grateful I am and one of the ways I can communicate that is through my writing. That’s cool and all but I started to wonder why I felt any desire to share our story to begin with. I believe that humans are hardwired to share and want to be seen, but thinking about an engaging way to share my family’s story to anyone interested in watching ( foreshadowing :0 ) feels deeper than that.
I usually opt to give them letters or other written messages to express my love but with the gold mine I landed upon I feel like I can do a lot more. And I want to do a lot more. And, I want to share our stories in beautiful and engaging ways…the way I see our memories in my head. That’s when I realized it, I am the collector of the family. I am the keeper of our stories. I am the archiver.
But what good is archival work without a way to revisit the stories?
I have always been a collector of things. Ever since I was little I would hold onto concert tickets, old school id’s, movie stubs, trinkets, or any sort of physical memento to remind me of the time passed. I can say for certain that no one else really cares about family heirlooms, pictures, or mementos the way I do (or my mom does, but that’s where and how I inherited this trait). For too long that bothered me and I wasn’t sure why. I guess, in some way, I was disappointed in myself for always falling short of my own expectations. Whether it was with this portfolio or with my ability to tell stories, my writing and expression never translated the way I hoped it would.
I value the consideration and attention I can give these invaluable artifacts, so now I want to build my storytelling muscle to do right by all the memories I’ve collected. I hope that you stick around to support me on my journey and that, in the coming weeks and months, you are able to see the micro-tears I create in this storytelling muscle of mine. :’)
Once again, welcome to my portfolio.
I am so happy to have you here!
me sometime in 2003, in the front yard of my childhood home…the place where my earliest memory lives.