Items

• 
  2020-12-08

  Mental Health in a Pandemic, 2020

  “It represents my mental health in the sense that the muddled background color represents all the “crappy” things going on in the world, and the chaotic lines also represent that, but they are the more pressing matters. The chaotic lines also connect to the head, representing the way everything got to me and in my head during this, and gave me a very jealous outlook on life, because there were a lot of people better off than I was, mentally, physically, financially, even though I was not in THAT bad of a place comparatively to others. Also the different textures between watercolor, pencil, and pen is representative of the different layers and different things going on in my life all at once. I really utilized the symbolism of things as well as playing with different textures in a cohesive way to represent myself and my feelings in a more abstract way.” -Sydney Avtges's response to when I asked her how her drawing represents her mental state during the pandemic.
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  2020-04-16

  Long distance letters

  This photo is a birtday box my friend sent me from Maryland to Florida. We originally planned on celebrating together because we'd be at school still, riding out the end of our freshman year of college, but with all Florida universities being shut down in early March, we were forced to move out of our dorm and return to our homes. This image is important to me because with the craziness and uncertancy of the future, we went back to our roots and stayed in contact the old fashoned way, letters. While we still talked on the phone and texted, waiting to get your next letter in the mail was exciting and fun. In this particular box, I was sent a shirt that my friend tye-dyed herself & a couple of letters about different things she'd been doing (or not doing) and just letters about life. Even though we were apart, being able to write and send momentums made us all feel closer.
• 
  2020-04-02

  Totem of the Stitches by Natalia A.B.

  I began writing this book at the end of eight grade. I worked on it for two years until just this last April, and self published it completely independently at age 15. This book is about the hardships of a teenager's life, the darkness of existence. It focuses a lot on questioning society, it's structure and the way we function, as well as the darkness of an adolescent's life that we don't all get to see or experience. Publishing this book during quarantine was something I was as initially doubtful about seeing as the situation of our present is severe throughout the entire world. However, this book helped me personally through hard times in my life, and I felt as if publishing this book might help other people feel less alone in a time of fear and sadness. Thus, I published this book amidst the pandemic, and hope to provide a bit more light in a time of darkness.