After walking around our neighborhood for a solid thirty minutes, my sister and I found a rusty white van. Upon initial inspection, all I noticed was the graffiti on the hood of the van that I believed to say, “RAP”. Having previously discussed the rap industry during the class discussion, I wanted to somehow connect the graffiti to that. However, my sister mentioned something different that I otherwise would have ignored. She mentioned how the hood and bumper were rusted. I asked her, “How is that art?”, and I thought to myself how much of a stretch using that as art was. The link wasn’t connecting in my head. However, my sister, Janice, said that the van is representative of resilient people, and the rust of their hardships. Despite the van being worn down and rusted, it still stands mighty and strong. This is the same with people. We face hundreds of hardships, but those who are resilient are able to stand proudly. After she told me her perspective, I was fascinated. Never in a million years would I have considered the rust on a van as art, but even the most common of objects can be art and convey meaning.

In a literal sense, a van with rust doesn’t mean much and doesn’t accurately represent the people who live here. However, with my new representation of the van, it can be compared to my strong and resilient neighbors. Every one of my neighbors have wonderful homes and the neighbors I’m close with, have worked very hard for their incomes. Despite their hardships, they remained resilient and continued to work to accomplish their goals and achieve financial success.

P.S.- I know this is not art in a traditional sense (in fact, it’s quite lame), but it was all I could find.