I finished one class needed to retain my teaching license. It was pretty good, but the final project had me cracking myself up. The class was “Drawing to Increase Literacy” and the assignment was to take a piece of descriptive literature and illustrate it, breaking the process into various parts. Without even thinking too much about it, I chose a Langston Hughes poem that Lorainne Hainsbury took the title of “Raisin in the Sun” from. The images are great, and I often introduced the poem along with the play to high school students and had the DISTINCT impression that they had no idea what the poem was talking about. What it is talking about is the sadness and despair of a dream that is set aside, the almost grotesque nature of how we can loose what we might cling to, or how what we might hope for can be snatched from us.
The funny thing is that as I drew these images, I made myself sick. Really. I grossed myself out. Ha! If the goal was to make the work more alive and immediate, I guess the assignment worked, right?
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Um, you grossed me out, too. Although I wish you would have illustrated “sags like a heavy load”… I’ve been with my nieces in Spokane all week so all I can think of is a fully diaper. GROSS. LOL
August 6th, 2009
Thanks Cameron! That is a great image…. a saggy diaper. Cloth diapers don’t really sag like that though, but nothing compares to a heavy load in a nasty diaper.
August 7th, 2009
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