Brutal Love

At MIAD, in an illustration class my senior year, I was given the assignment of taking a book, any book of my choice, opening to a random page and creating an illustration of what was on that page. I didn’t want to make this too easy and pick a book or an author that I loved. I went to the Harry W. Schwartz bookstore in downtown Milwaukee and browsed, looking for something I had never heard of before. Not sure what made me pick it out, but I ended up with The Accident by Elie Weisel, which is also known as Day. I had never heard of either the book or the author at that time. I did what the assignment called for and opened to a random page.

I wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the imagery I opened to. I just tried to find the page in the book, but I can’t. It was a passage that was very surreal and disturbing, linking sex with the Holocaust. I did my best to represent the page, coming up with this rather surreal image. I drew it in conte crayon in a looser style. The image focuses on the woman who was assaulted by the Nazi officer.

I think this work turned out, but it is hard to look at. I have a difficult time really accepting the callousness and indifference, even hatred, which people can have for one another. Something like the Holocaust is an order of magnitude beyond anything even human. It would be so easy for all of us to accept one another and work together, lift each other up when necessary, but so many can’t find it in themselves to do so. Instead so many of us choose hatred and destruction.