Unbearable.

Extract

8" x 8.5"

This, right here, yes... RIGHT HERE, is my final illustration assignment to be handed in for interpretive illustration class this tuesday! Can you believe it? The end is near, kids.

I'm going to go on a sappy rant in a couple of minutes, but first let me give you a little back story on my piece. 'Extract' is a illustration created to comment on asia's bear bile farming. Bear bile farming involves painfully extracts bile from gall bladders of cruelly caged asiatic black bears ("moon bears"). Bear bile is used in ancient chinese medicines, and is believed to have some healing properties to it. Bear bile farming is an un-necessary industry that continues to exist despite the fact that it is both inhumane to these captive bears, and has no proven human medicinal benefits.

The bear depicted in my illustration has his identity not only mirrored and challenged by the bile drop in behind him, but he is also caged by both the 'barred' background and the medicine packaging that restrains him. The chinese characters on either side of the bear mean "chinese medicine", and i felt that having them on either side of him would also reiterate a feeling of being trapped in the piece. Often it seems that bile bears are basically trapped by the very fact that they do produce bile in the first place, so I tried to show both that, and the commercial side of why the bear is unable to escape what he is going through. I hope that makes sense.

'Extract' is one of several projects that signal a coming close to my 4 years at Sheridan College. I have mixed feelings about the end of my college experience. On one hand, it's nice that one chapter of my life is coming to a close to make way for the next, but on the other - it's incredibly sad. I guess the thing I will miss the most about Sheridan are the people who I have spent the last 4 years with. I have never been in such an environment where artistic thinking was so widespread... I have now become so used to it, that I think I have sometimes even come to take it for granted. While I definitely plan to keep in touch with the "illokids", it is easy for me to understand why things will never be like they are now. It's hard to imagine all of us in the same place again, like we are right now while immersed in the same program, at the same college. So I guess right now I am savoring the last few drops (3 weeks or so!) of my time here in a program I love, with people that I am extremely grateful to have had the pleasure to meet in my life.

What's next? First, there is still a mountain of projects to conquer, then... Design at either York or OCAD. I have yet to choose. There is still a lot to think about!