Art Challenge: A Tribute To Photojournalist Dan Eldon
Vikki North, a very talented artist whom I’m sure you’ve met by now in the comments section of this blog or on my blogroll, invited me a few days ago to participate in a three-way challenge with herself and the very expressive illustrator and fine artist Michael Edens.
We agreed to each create an artwork inspired by the life of Dan Eldon, a young photojournalist who lived a very short but amazing life capturing events and keeping journals during a time of devastating war and upheaval in Somalia.
I will attempt to encapsulate just a small part of his story here. You can read more on Both Vikki’s and Michael’s blogs as well as the Wikipedia entry about his life and on the National Geographic website.
The British-born Dan Eldon moved to Kenya with his parents when he was six. When he was 12, his mother, journalist Kathy Eldon, took him with her on assignments during the aftermath of an attempted coup in Kenya in 1982. It was there that Dan began chronicling his experiences in photographs.
At fifteen, he began incorporating his photographs into a series of journals which he embellished with paints, drawing, collage, and personal commentary.
He traveled extensively, led expeditions across Africa, and headed philanthropic projects. He continued to take photographs of the conditions of famine, violence and war surrounding him, some of which ran in Newsweek and Time Magazines. He died tragically in 1993 in Mogadishu at the hands of an angry and grieving mob reacting to a UN bombing raid.
His mother later compiled a collection of his colorful collage journals into the book The Journey Is The Destination. It will soon be produced as a feature film.
I was immediately drawn in by this story of a young man who packed so much living into such a few short years. I really love the quote in the front flap of the book: “The Journey Is the Destination is a book of art and a young man’s life, but mostly it is a book about the art of life.”
It was impossible to come up with one piece of art that would begin to express what I took away from the story of his life. Mostly two things come to the surface:
- All we really do have is today, and
- We must connect with something larger than ourselves in order to reach our full potential as human beings.
My collage hopefully expresses some of these thoughts.
Outstanding Martha. It’s an excellent piece and so clearly expresses the challenge of this young man’s art and life. I would wager a bet Kathy Eldon would love your collage representing her son, as well.
I hope you realize that you are such an elegant writer. The tribute and research you did on this is really in depth. You and Michael both told me things I didn’t know about Dan and what’s happening with the Journals. I had purchased Kathy’s book –10 years ago with my work in television. That’s what I mainly relied on for my piece.
Dan was such an extraordinary young man and someone everyone should meet through his Mother’s words and memories.
Michael and I were so honored that you participate in our Challenge. Maybe you’d like to come up with a theme and put ‘us to task’ for Challenge #4? Think about it.
Vikki
Hi Martha,
I like every part of your artwork. From background to foreground to individual elements to the whole, everything rings true to Dan’s story. I especially like how my personal perception of it all changes depending upon which part of your art I focus on… abstract background to concrete words, or metaphors of time to the animal print behind the skeleton… it’s powerful. I just can’t explain what taking it all in at once is like, but thank you for it!
I’m honored to be a part of this project with you, and will be adding you to my Blog Roll. Thanks sharing your art development ideas here, it’s wonderful inspiration!
~Michael
Vikki, I really appreciate being included in this challenge. It was an honor. I definitely want the book. It looks like something that could inspire over and over, no matter how many times you open it.
Michael, thank you for your insightful comments and observations. I’m so glad the art piece connected for you in that way. I’ve added you to my blogroll as well.
A beautiful collage that invokes a variety of interesting thoughts and feelings. One of the things I like about Vikki’s challenges with Michael, and now you, is the different feelings each style is capable of evoking.
Thanks much Martha for calming me down. I first went to Michael’s blog and actually read the wikipedia piece before viewing his work. I then went back and forth between Vikki’s work and that of Michael, and I was emotionally exhausted. The title of this challenge is oh so appropriate.
I left comments on both of their blog’s that I did not know whether I had the emotional reserves to see another artist’s rendition this evening. But because this story had such an impact on me, I had “no choice.”
Interesting, Vikki’s work reminded me of childhood. Michael’s work reflected the conflicting emotions of childhood and adulthood, along with the ultimate confusion. Your work provided perspective to his life, encapsulated it, and calmed me down. May he rest in peace. Woww….
I can only express to those who are seeing the digital manifestation of this work the depth, texture and stunning color shifts of the original as I’ve been privileged to do.
I love that the three of you challenge each other’s creativity. But I am profoundly satisfied that the three of you chose a will-o-the-wisp life as subject of your challenge.
That life is transient, there is no argument. That short years can have a nascent affect on those who are left to wonder when the life that is lived is as bright as this young man’s was is also haud argument .
Would that we all could make such a scratch on the rock that after we leave this plane, we stir competitions between artists, poets or writers in our name.
Blessings.
D