Survivors Art Show Postcard

KATE SEAWELL

I was told to abstract the paintings (seen below) and communicate the grit and strength it takes to be a cancer survivor. I was given physical paintings by Corky Ollinger, I photographed them in a nice shady spot, then cropped the frames out. Using all of the paintings was important, especially since the prompt was to represent the paintings in an abstract way.

Picking the typeface for the card was not hard, I went with a round face that is strong and comes in many weights. The type stands as a symbol of strength but also approachability and friendliness. It was important to break up and distress “survivors” for two reasons, to make it a slower read and a little harder to read because every step of that journey is hard, and unless you have been through it, it is hard to understand. I also wanted to shadow it because many times people are multiple time survivors and there is always that haunting feeling like it is coming back.

The paintings are abstracted, putting different pieces of different paintings on top of other pieces. The reason for this is because surviving is rough, it takes grit. The audience is supposed to have to work to see that one’s cancer journey is not clear and clean, it is rough and ragged, tearing at people but at the same time revealing their deep strength and beauty.