Hopefully, in 20 or so years, I would get to be walking around the school that I called home for 4 years and the city it sits in with a partner and perhaps some kids. I would get to point out all of the places I used to sit and sketch or where I met people for dates or my favorite pieces in the museum and they would care even if I’d showed them 100 times already. We could talk about the fear of living in the Trump era pandemic-ridden America with enough distance to find some good in the little interactions and moments of bliss we had along the way. We could return home to an apartment or home with walls splashed in color and furniture that doesn’t quite make sense together, books were strewn about, and somewhere in the pile would sit a graphic novel I had written. Go home and talk to our children through homework and school troubles and have the fact that they are not our blood not even cause a second glance from passersby.
A "utopia" to me is not flying cars and technology, it’s simply being able to live a life in which I am undisturbed for the most part. A life where I and others like me can have a happy existence with a family that was forged in love and generations of struggle that has finally paid off. To be able to tell the stories I wish to in the way that I wish for them to be told and to have them resonate with people. To not live in constant fear of the world sliding through the cracks of my fingers like sand. That is my utopia.
"We have not long to love. Light does not stay. The tender things are those we fold away. Coarse fabrics are the ones for common wear.""
For this project, I want to make something narrative and quaint. My writing reflected a notion of wanting a calm and “normal” life for myself and a possible future partner in which we can live and not be gawked at. Reflecting on that kind of quiet bliss is paramount to me in this piece. I want to make a long accordion-folded book depicting scenes of what I want my every day to be like in the future with my family. I plan on writing either some kind of poem, pulling quotes, or using excerpts from my free-write as a text element throughout this piece. I will do the illustrations on watercolor paper but due to the thickness of the kind of paper I like to use, I will scan, format, and print my illustrations before putting covers on them. In all likelihood, I will make multiple copies to get the most out of my money from printing services.
At the moment, I plan for the illustration to be a panoramic view of what I would ideally want my home to look like and as the viewer moves through space, they move through time, going through the motions of a day in what I want to be my life. In all likelihood, I will have to make these images composites, meaning I will illustrate certain elements such as people and objects separately from the background and compile them digitally. This will take a great deal of time but I don’t plan on this illustration being any more than 17 inches long and perhaps 4-5 inches tall when all is said and done. The cover will be made out of some kind of hard cardboard that will be decorated rather simply and the book will be fastened together with a ribbon, almost like a small present.
Materials