December 13, 2013: the day Kolby died.
I chose this day in my life for my linear day accordion book because it was a very difficult day for me, so I felt there was a lot of emotion to convey using lines.
For the cover, I scanned Kolby’s obituary, edited it a few different ways and printed a few copies of each edit on tyvek paper. I then cut the copies up and pasted them to the cover to make a collage. I used the dark edits and the regular edits to create contrast in the collage. I used repetition by using that first paragraph of the obituary multiple times, both chopped up and whole. I felt that was the most important part, and summarized my accordion book.
My first page depicts a squiggly line drawing of the sun in black marker to show the hazy winter morning. I use the rays to transition into the well-organized school day (the second page) that followed. The lines with the arrows continue the sun rays to show that it was just a normal day, everything went as usual. I wanted this page to feel structured and effortless because it was part of our everyday routine. I used the repetition of the arrows to show that we were just repeating the same things we did every single day. We went to class, we went to BOCES, we got off the bus feeling particularly optimistic after having an overall great day. We got in our cars and headed home. The third page depicts a road, as that was the last place I saw Kolby. I was on my way from Bolivar to Olean, and he passed me in a 55 MPH zone going well over 55 MPH. Of course I thought nothing of it, I figured he was just being a reckless boy, so I waved, smiled, and shook my head.
I found out later that he had died shortly after he passed me. He was driving too fast on an icy road, and crashed. Represented on the fourth page is a feeling of chaos and confusion. I wanted that page to feel like a crash. I used acrylic paint on this page instead of the marker used on the first three pages to demonstrate a sense of unpredictability and a sudden change of pace. The fifth page shows how the rest of my night went after I found out what had happened. I used the black water-color to represent crying and smudged, messy, eyeliner. I cried for the whole night, until I practically went numb (which is represented on the sixth and final page), and fell asleep crying. I left this page mostly blank other than the single tear because that’s how it felt, just blank and numb.
Provided below are my preliminary sketches, experimenting, material tests, and file management:
