digging deeper.

Well, today was a double critique day. Projects were due for both my Digital Imaging class and Illustration. I was proud of both pieces, but especially attached to my illustration piece. Both earned good reviews, which I was soooo thankful for.

It's becoming clearer and clearer to me that illustration will no doubt be a giant part of my future career. I have growing passion for many things, drawing, illustrating, baking, children's books...and there is still so much I have yet to try. But it is clear to me now that each of these particular callings that arrive as I keep learning, are all pointing in one direction.

Create. Use your voice.

The power of all that is visual is something that amazes me every day.

After our critiques in Illustration, our professor handed out a short story by Joyce Carol Oates called Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? extremely unsettling story, with reference to a real life killer.

And our assignment? Create an image to accompany the story.

A little twisted don't you think, Prof? A few people in the class after reading it were begging for a new story. One girl especially had someone close to her with a story eerily familiar to the one of the young girl in Joyce Carol Oates's piece. It was completely understandable that she voiced her strong objections to it.

Our professor was a bit taken aback by the class reaction to the short story but offered up a second alternative. (A very drab one at that.) And I had to really think for a moment. Do I want to create an image representing this dark and sinister story? Or do I take the alternative?

I don't blame anyone in the class for wanting different subject matter. But I felt something shift in me as I made my decision. And maybe that shift comes at different times for different people. But my time came today.

I decided to go through with the original story. I realized as I sat there and thought about how sick and twisted this world can be, that my art has an entirely different dimension I have yet to explore - its darker side. I'm afraid of this assignment because it will ultimately challenge me to go to a darker place that I have not yet come in clear contact with. It will force me to confront the harsh and unsettling realities of the world.

And as frightening as that is, I can't turn it down. I'm terrified and curious at the same time in a way. This is wayyyyy out of my comfort zone. But what facets of my art could I lose by not stepping outside the box?

And these unsettling realities? The rapists, the murders, the wars, the terrorists, the starvation, the poverty, the genocide, the atomic bombs, the horrors of our history?

They. Are. Real.

Art is an examination of life, of humanity, of dream and color and space and emotion.

And as much as I as a person and as an artist, seek the good, the joy and the truth in this life....I cannot ignore the other side of the spectrum. Of the world, or of my own art and expression. There must be balance. I feel as though my life has been sheltered and there are moments when I feel like I've left my rose colored glasses on too long. And these kinds of horrifying stories are uncharted territory. They disturb me.

Well, Hayden...you can't hide forever. It's time to dig deeper.