Saturday 25 April 2020 / 2 Weeks lock Down Extension
The Life & Death of Illustration
During the course of my art career I’ve regurgitated a substantial amount of illustration work. If I had to be perfectly honest, I can’t say I ever enjoyed the process much. It was more a means to an end in bringing food to the table. A matter of life and death. Using my talent to fit into the narrow channels of a brief was often met with, ”No, that’s not what we were asking for, please redo the illustration but with these changes …”
Unable to freely express my own creative license as to how I interpreted the brief, at times, was met with this kind of resistance. Being a slave to the money, just like the rest of us, I was obliged to comply, leaving me with that hollow feeling that I had somehow been exploited, that I had successfully prostituted myself with my creative gift to fulfill the expectations of another. This of course was not always the case, there were many enjoyable experiences too that challenged my progress in learning new skills.
Memories from the Archives
Going through my archives I came across this illustration. It did make me smile a little, though on the darker side of humour, given what the world is experiencing right now. Pity I did not include a syringe on the table, it would have made it more topical, but let’s not go down that rabbit hole. I don’t wish to be brandished by the thought police.
The meaning behind the illustration is that there is no doubt a hidden agenda to what we believe is really going on, at the best of times. This is driven primarily … and very successfully on our receptive behavior to fear. We see the tip of the iceberg, but not the totality of the iceberg itself. The truth is that we are all going to die, at some point, in various kinds of ways. I believe we should try to take ourselves less seriously. What is worse, way worse, is that through our blinded obsession with fear, we have forgotten how to truly live.
Life is in my Hands
Today I will practice more gratitude; for the feel of the sun on my face or the sound of the wind rustling through the leaves. For the people in my life that I care about … and even for those that I believe I don’t. For the ability at this point to still reason, to think, to create, to love.