The theme that the Image Tree 2021 Team picked for this year's publication was "In Uncertain Times." We decided upon this theme because 2020 was a year of frustration, worry, and isolation-- a year where we were reminded just how much uncertainty is a part of our lives, and we wanted to allow students to feel less isolated by being able to expunge some of the 2020 gunk creatively. We encouraged students to interpret the theme however they desired--some liked the challenge of uncertainty while others explored themes of fear and isolation that uncertainty brought them. We hope that this collection of works shows viewers that we can come together in times of uncertainty; and that art, being written or other forms, heals no matter the circumstance.
I took this picture after a friend and I had a hellish week with our school work, and it all just became too much. When we were on the drive: it has become the new norm to drive and vent into the night air, letting go of the week and its stresses of chaos that is never-ending.
I painted this artwork during the globe freeze in February this year. It was feeling hopeless and unable to go anywhere, which is never a good feeling. The 100 and 0 represent the temperature dropping day by day. The fire alarms keep going off in Reeves Hall and it was a feeling of consistent panic and isolation but through the...
I captured this photo while walking by myself. My shadow is my companion that is always with me when others are no longer in my life or have died. I can always depend on myself to get through the hard path.
This photo I took is a depiction of my coping strategy for when I am stressed and I don't know what else to do. I often follow the power lines to guide my journey to a 'safe place' by myself. I started doing this at the end of my senior year because I did not know what came next, I...
I wrote this poem, "The Year of Lead," in late October, a few weeks before the election. At the time, I was aware of the somber mood around campus and in my own life as we experienced political uncertainty in a pandemic. This heavy mood seemed to be a culmination of all the events we experienced in 2020; this poem...
This short poem is titled "Spring Comes." It connects to the theme of uncertain times because it uses the metaphor of Spring to talk about perseverance through difficult times in life. During this pandemic, it has seemed like we are all trapped and waiting for better times to finally come in order to live our lives, kind of like how...
I wrote this poem to process the feelings I had for a girl who was three years older than me. I never knew if she liked me or not and was always too afraid to tell her about my feelings, so I wrote. Love is very easy to connect to the unknown, isn't it? In this piece, it's obvious...
The quality of life today is more associated with what someone is "doing" rather than their actual quality of life. Time and time again I see people complaining about the year they've lost, and though it is a loss, it means nothing if we don't reflect upon it. I feel like everything that isn't considered interesting by the outside world...
I made the decision in November to start therapy again, and my therapist has been a hugely positive influence on my self-image. She practices Internal Family Systems Therapy, which focuses on the different parts of the self that make you you. The world around us seems to have grown more and more complex, no matter how hard we try to...
This poem was written out of my need to make sense of a world in which I live as a vegan and others do not. At the time, I had a very complicated relationship with people who ate meat. I couldn't understand them, because I felt like I knew so much about the industry and many of them just didn't...