Awakenings

For my “Awakening” collage, I drew inspiration from past artwork and experiences to from a unified piece of art. The work was done in retrospect, or taking place at the beginning of, the events. As a biographical note, both my mother and father had cancer. These events were tremendously influential in making me the person who I am today. I have learned so much from these occurrences and have taken away from them artistic inspiration and an entire artistic style that is reflected in the collage. This piece was a reminder of the emotions that were alive in my home at the beginning of the ordeal, but also harkens to the current feelings that we have.

In its purest from, art is communication. Comprising of many elements of symbolism, my collage communicates the uncertainty, fear, and vulnerability that we as a family felt during this time period. My initial concept was to structure a piece that draws from elements I have used before, and interpret them differently, adding new and innovative elements when possible. I utilized the objects of ribbons which I see as winding, unraveling occurrences in life. The pink ribbon symbolizes breast cancer, while the blue ribbon stands for prostate cancer – the cancers my mom and dad had, respectively. The ribbons are darkened in saturation to give a more melancholy look to the overall piece. Additionally, I wanted to do something out of the ordinary, so I used two elements of three-dimensional from – the newspaper and the hair. The newspaper grounds the piece, and symbolizes the jagged, rocky, and confusing news we received. I gently glazed the surface of the paper with black paint, representing the darkness and sadness of that news. The ribbons are both attached to the bottom of the newspaper to symbolize the illness coming forth by means of that news. They also darken as they get closer to the blackened paper. Many people don’t realize that loosing one’s hair is a traumatic fear of cancer patients. They think that it means nothing in the course of an illness. However, this fear haunts patients at times, and symbolizes a mark of disease. Although neither of my parents lost their hair during their bouts with cancer, the fear was present. To enhance the creativity of the piece, I used some old strings from a mop and painted them to resemble locks of hair. I placed them on the piece to create movement and symbolism. If you notice, they are covering up an idealized meadow scene, which I use to symbolize normalcy and a sense of wellbeing. The fear of losing one’s hair is covering that sense of wellbeing, creating apprehension and instability. The next part of the piece is a single but powerful word – recurrence. This is a terrifying word, and I wanted to communicate that by using striking black letters on a background of cream accented by fiery red, yellow and orange streaks. The final element is a written portion at the top of the work. I painted these words in white over black paint, which I applied to the canvas board using a palette knife to add texture. The writing states, “Lost is the security we once thrived on. In its place, fear and anxiety. We are struck down, But not destroyed.” I wrote this because I felt that it is an accurate representation of awakening to disease, sickness, and vulnerability, highlighting the emotions my family felt. But, I always like to put something optimistic in my works. In this case, it is the last line. Yes we were struck down and felt dejected, but we would not be destroyed.

This piece is truly symbolic of “Awakening” for me. The realization of being vulnerable and the possibility of death are things I will not forget. In those moments of despair, I was awakened to the facts that life could not be taken for granted and no one is immune to hardship. As a family, we will never be the same again. But there is hope. After cancer, there is always life.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 5:20 pm and is filed under