Week One (January 14-20)

Weekly Reading Response

Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal often brings about questions concerning the often times apparent conflicting worlds of morality and survival. In a world of largely "civilized" cultures, the idea of survival at any cost has largely been lost due to a lacking need of emphasis, as comfort and civility are now the goals in worlds where survival has become much less of a lifelong quest. While the chronological context of Swift's writing is one of a world where food was scarce and death a much more prevalent part of the average man's life, it can still apply to these modern times as a sort of warning of the extremes humanity may very well have to consider should it ever suddenly fall from this treacherous point of false security. For while survival may be simple today, the actions of a few men and women, or changes in any of the many millions of environmental factors that grant us daily sustenance may very well end this apparent peacefulness. The threat of humanity's growth is one to our food and supply, and we must continuously remember that while we may have moral conflict with the consumption of ourselves in order to survive as a race, there are many more creatures in the world who have no such qualms in the absolute pursuit of survival. The time of man has lasted for a long, long time, and there is a certain inevitable end to it as a result of our developmental growth, either towards moral or survival absolutes, and only time can truly tell which it will be.

Weekly Studies

(Materials: $5 Illustration Board)

 Rodent Thumbnail One
6"x6"
Ink and Watercolor on Illustration Board

 Rodent Thumbnail Two
6"x6"
Ink and Watercolor on Illustration Board

 Avian Thumbnail One
6"x4.5"
Ink and Watercolor on Watercolor Paper

Serpent Thumbnail One

6"x4.5"

Ink and Watercolor on Watercolor Paper

Weekly Inspirations

 Chuck Chair (Illustrator)

I admire the artist's use of limited color, and was looking to mimic the use of limited color within character design in these pieces in a way that, while different from how Chair uses it, still allows each design to stand independently of the others while still maintaining a familial color connection.

 H.P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls (1924)

One of Lovecraft's less supernatural thrillers about the descent of the mind into madness and paranoia, this story piqued my interest in the concepts and ideas surrounding rodents and pests and the discomfort they create within the human mind, be it due to fear of the creatures themselves or fear of what their presence may and will suggest.

Allegaeon, Proponent for Sentience (2016)

Borrowing heavily from speculative science and fiction, this band as a whole, especially in this album, creates loosely woven narratives of worlds so far different from ours, but so very possible in our future. While the tracks are built around the ideas of artificial intelligence and the downfall of man to a "lesser" creation, the ideas of something once viewed as a lesser or unimportant being is seen repeatedly in history, and the rodent (among other pests) has often showed that something so small, in the overwhelming presence offered by its numbers, may very well overthrow the status quo (see the spread of the Black Plague in Europe). As such, lines such as "They asked "Is there a God?" We answered, "There is now," not only could refer to the overwhelming power of these "lower" creatures, but also to the overwhelming strength of the natural order itself, should the human race become one that is deemed by whatever driving force we attribute the natural order to no longer be worth salvaging.