My idea behind this print - our final assignment - was aggressive optimism I guess? I’m still struggling with how I want to word it. Basically, during critique I explained that in our chapter of KKΨ, we have a lot of Brothers who fight and have fought and will continue to fight with depression. If everyone who had attempted suicide or had really given it a lot of thought had gone through with it to the end, I don’t want to know how many people we’d be down. Too many.
We’ve had a lot of intensely emotional moments this past year, and after a particularly rough evening I couldn’t get the phrase “once was enough” out of my head, it was plastered all over my walls when I got back to my room and wouldn’t let me sleep. Why do we let things get this bad? Why does once have to exist at all? For some people, once is all it takes and that’s it.
For me, once was enough.
And I started crying for the second time that night, alone in the dark in my bed, about how lonely I would be without so many close friends just... gone. As soon as we accept that once is a reality, we have let that one time win. School shootings. Rape. Racial injustice. Suicide. There are so many things my print could be talking about, and that’s why I stayed away from imagery. There’s so much hate and negativity and violence and I’m so. Tired.
It’s enough. Of course it is. But it’s been enough for too long. Once should never be the case, because once is too much.
I plan on using these words in my work later in different media to access all sorts of people. The red words stamped on top are intended to be slightly illegible to make you take a closer look. The purple text background is the voice of people who acknowledge but do nothing to help. The red text on top, hard to hear amidst the sea of purple voices, is a flare fired to open your eyes. Please.
