With my final project, I’ve learned a lot about what it means to interpret an artifact. On my midterm, I wrote about the Ethiopian Magic Scrolls that we saw in special collections. I put a lot of time into my paper, but after reading Dr. Pressman’s feedback, I realized that my paper wasn’t specifically about one of the scrolls. As I’ve been working on my project, I’ve picked one specific scroll in special collections to focus on, instead of writing about all of them. But in doing so, I realized that it was up to me to figure out what to write. And its been a little awkward. There is no outside source for this specific scroll. I had to figure out what it was that I was looking at, and it makes me feel a bit like a fraud. Are my interpretations of the object valid? I want to say no, that I’m not an expert in the field, but I’m still a researcher in my own way. I feel like I’m making stuff up, even with my own observations. I really haven’t done anything like this before, and I’m glad to be doing it, but I definitely had to increase my confidence through this process.

For the creative aspect, I’m expanding on the concept as books as accessories, specifically individualized ones. For this part, I’ve begun doing outside research on books as fashion, but there aren’t many resources on Ethiopian, or even African, books as accessories. At least not in English. I’ll have to connect it to European and American history, which isn’t bad, but I was hoping to discover something more. Maybe I still will, and I just need to search more efficiently. Admittedly, I haven’t begun the physical creation of my scroll, but I do have it planned out and it shouldn’t take too long, assuming there are no hiccups in my schedule this week. I look forward to making it, but writing on a scroll my height will take some time. I might just make it long enough to wrap around my torso as a sash instead of matching my height. It is meant to be my accessory, after all. Overall, this project has me reevaluating how I conduct my own physical research, and I’m looking forward to sharing with you all!