Still Life Final

Artist Statement

This picture contains many metaphors referencing the idea of the outdoors being both a passion and an escape. To create this picture, I propped up a "North American Wildlife" calendar as the background, with an eagle's head clearly visible. A pair of sunglasses rests in front of the calendar, slightly angles and tilted up. A Swiss army knife with all the tools open is also shown. A bracelet with the placard "I made a difference", and a snorkeling certification are placed in the foreground.

The calendar is intended to represent the idea of the outdoors being a constant passion, since a calendar keeps track of every day in the year. The sunglasses are a metaphor for blindness, since they reduce a person's ability to see, which while sometimes helpful, as an escape, can also blind people to real problems. The Swiss army knife, widely regarded as the gold standard for versatility, is a metaphor for how the outdoors camping appeal to everybody, not just one subset of people. The bracelet is, literally, a recognition of a donation I made towards ocean cleanup, shown with the "I made a difference" placard. Symbolically, it represents passion for the outdoors, and a recognition of the "leave it better than you found it" principle. Lastly, the snorkeling card is a representation of exploration, and longing to experience the unknown.