VIEWS AND ATTITUDES
’Tooning in
As part of her senior project at Boston Arts Academy, visual arts major Ianna Thornquist interviewed other teens from around the city to find out what was on their minds. “I found that we have similar concerns,” she wrote, “no matter what neighborhoods or schools we come from.”
Using the quick, colorful power of the political cartoon to convey those points, here’s one example of what Thornquist drew up. To view her other artistic messages, please visit her blog at http://ithornquistseniorvaportfolio.blogspot.com
by Ianna Thornquist
Out of place
I wish I could live in a place, a place brightened with sunshine and gardens full of flowers.
A place where everybody smiles, and frowns do not exist; where everyone's dreams are reality and reality is only a dream.
Where I can live freely and never be held back.
A place where I can bug out and no one is afraid to join.
I want to fly to a place, a place where there is neither sickness nor sadness.
Instead, I live in a place of turmoil.
A place where I have to hold my tongue, afraid of what others might say.
I live in a place where "Yes we can" has become “No we cannot,” and babies are lost because adults have turned into babies.
I live in a place where education is no longer the key to success -- but it is the way you run, how ill your rhymes are, how good you look, or how good your jump shot is.
I live in a place where you can't walk anywhere without somebody telling you that you’re in a place where you should not be.
A place where I'm afraid to look out of my window in fear of what I might see, and every single day a person dies and it seems that we’re killing each other.
I live in a place where people believe, not in the word we, but only I.
I live in a place where there is no hope for tomorrow, but only dreams of what they wish could have happened today.
I wish I could live in a place where everyone could become the next Albert Einstein, and not the product of society's downfalls.
painting by Willy Wiggins // Artists for Humanity