This piece was inspired by a song and a poem. While I was discovering what I wanted to draw and after countless journeys throughout the Dana building, I decided to sit down and listen to some music. A song from a new album I was listening to started playing called My Time by Jeon Jungkook of BTS. The song begins with him feeling how fast time has gone, and that resonated with me so I deiced for the main concept to surround time. The english translation is first and then korean (original lyrics).

Twenty-four, it feels like I grew up faster than anyone else. My life has been a movie all the time I’ve been running toward where the sun rises. Every single night It’s like I’ve been to someone’s tomorrow…

Ay yeah (ay yeah)Ah twenty-four 누구보다 더 빨리 어른이 된 것만 같아
My life has been a movie all the time
해 뜨는 곳으로 달렸어 every single night
누구의 내일에 가봤던 것도 같아

The poem that inspired this piece was Failing and Flying by Jack Gilbert and remains in the background where the clock is located of the piece itself. This poem is my favorite and reflects how we should remember the bright side of the moments we share with others and ourselves. Basically to cherish time no matter how badly something has ended.

Failing and Flying

BY JACK GILBERT

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It’s the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Overall, I like how the piece turned out but there were aspects that I didn’t appreciate. I would have liked to incorporate the use of the India Ink but with the COVID-19 causing an uproar, it was hard for me to come onto campus and implementing the ink into the design of the clock and the background. The original goal was to have the India ink faded into the back to uplift the boldness of the sharpie. I had to improvise and decided to have the smoke coming from the hand holding the clock hand like a cigarette to fill up the space. However, I am not that skilled in drawing smoke so I am not completely sure if my attempts translated properly to paper.

An aspect of the piece I love are the actual hands because I hate drawing them and tend to avoid the use of hands in art or leave them unfinished. However, I decided to challenge myself and I am proud with the results. The hands are traced using the hands of my friends, but I would have liked to have included more of my friends hand prints but this shall suffice. If I had to do anything differently, other than the use of India ink, it would have been to carry the poem all the way down to the page instead of stopping mid way and fragmenting the poem the rest of the way. Because the poem isn’t that long, I decided to repeat them poem until I stopped. The very last few words are repetitions of the last line of the poem because its one of my favorite lines the drive the meaning of the poem home. Additionally, I want to work on my use of shading to make my hands feel more 3-d (as per my brother’s advise). Overall, this piece is one I am proud to have completed and I hope in the future my skills have improved beyond this.