COMMENT ON FACEBOOK

Foundational quote for image generation:

“I had to throw away who I was because of this incorrect perception of what a blind person was and what they should act like. I felt stuck on this roller coaster of different emotions throughout that year.”

The image depicts a bright, bustling city view filled with saturated colors, spotlighting Alayna with her back turned to the observer of the artwork. She is standing on a highly positioned, tangerine-colored roller coaster track, overlooking the scene of chaos below her. The landscape is bursting with sky-scraping buildings, billboards and flags, creating a spectacle of pandemonium. Roaming through the air, accompanying these city features are additional roller coaster tracks, clearly moving in various and unorderly directions. Alayna, adorned in a sea-green coat and an orange beanie, wind flying through her curly brown locks, is contemplating the paths that this roller coaster might embark on.

With the recent knowledge of her diagnosis, Alayna is struggling to navigate her new identity. She is grappling with the contradictions of who she has always been versus who she thinks other people perceive her now that she has been diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. The varying roller coaster tracks symbolize her contrasting emotions regarding this issue, and the steepness of the track she is standing upon represents her fear of the unpredictable.

COMMENT ON FACEBOOK

Foundational quote for image generation:

“I’ve also gained more appreciation for how things literally feel, especially since I got the cane. I love going over all the different textures and the domes when you cross the street. Because some of them are so good. Some of them sound like music and it’s the coolest thing ever.”

Set in the streets of a city, this image portrays a bird’s-eye view of people strolling along crosswalks, heading to their respective destinations. The illustration has a rigid structure in that the crosswalks form a square shape consuming most of the frame. A dim, gray undertone encapsulates the character of the piece. However, the streets are beautified by vibrant, colorful music notes and clef symbols, decorating the ground in a fashion akin to graffiti. These musical ornaments bring life and vitality to otherwise lackluster streets, contradicting the rigidity of the lines with their abstract nature and making up for the achromatic gloom with vivid oranges, yellows, pinks, and blues.

The image animates Alayna’s skill in translating the sound of her cane tapping the ground into musical patterns. She has found art in something that could be viewed as inopportune. Rather than focusing on the inconvenience and despair that may arise from relying on a cane, she has learned to draw attention to what makes her disability beautiful – including the elements of music that are found within the textures of the ground.

COMMENT ON FACEBOOK

Foundational quote for image generation:

“Lean on your people, but just know no matter where you go, no matter how far, that person that you are and always have been is still going to be there. You’re going to be alright. It’s just a new part of your identity that you’re going to realize is super cool. I am blind like my hair is brown, you know? It’s just a part of me that I really appreciate.”

This illustration presents an enlarged, abstract-style portrait of Alayna from the neck up. Her face is composed of various geometric shapes and vibrant colors, creating a mosaic-like effect. These shapes and colors blend to form Alayna’s distinct features, such as her eyes, nose, lips, and hair. Her hair is depicted in dark shades of brown, while her face is made up of bright hues of yellow, orange, pink, blue, and green.

The most significant features in the illustration are her big brown eyes and curly brown hair, for Alayna compares her blindness to the color of her hair – conveying the message that being blind is as much of a staple of her identity as her hair is. They are both very real and permanent qualities that not only shape her into the person she is but are also ones that she values highly. The fixedness of her hair color throughout her life symbolizes the constancy of her identity, even through a life-altering diagnosis – she remains the same person she has always been. Placing her blindness in the same category as her hair color speaks to the idea that she does not view this impairment as a disability, but rather an addition to who she is.