Let me preface by saying that the whole purpose of my my illustrations is to tell a story. It’s not to look pretty or to fill up the space above your couch—-it’s simply there to tell a short story in picture form that anyone can relate to on one level or another.

My latest piece featured Obama, a very loaded figure, and it makes me nervous. I am always very hesitant to touch political topics because I know around here, people have very strong biases even if the art itself is unbiased (which it is.) Basically, people can be so distracted by the subject matter that they won’t even bother to read the story, and therefore the piece loses its purpose. It becomes a weird comic or pretty art or maybe even just another piece of propaganda, and that’s very frustrating.

Of course, I certainly won’t limit myself because of them and I probably shouldn’t worry so much, but I believe that there are always stories to tell and it still sort of upsets me that people would blind themselves to art in such a foolish and impractical ways just because you slapped a political figure on it instead of Generic Joe, American Gothic.
But then, I suppose people have always had this problem.

Oh well.
Off to work.