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Ads Of Humanity

The On and Off Six Year And Counting Project

By Jada FergusonPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
3
A Filtered Work in Progress of Ads Of Humanity

I was zig zagging through a bustling crowd. There were waves of people. Waves warring with one another. So many going forward and so many going backwards. You have never seen an ocean like this. Technically I did not see it either, but I could feel all of them hovering over me. Suffocating me. Trying to crash into me, going out of their way to collapse on top of me. I was in full panic, upright crawling to a destination I did not want to reach. To upright crawl is for the world to see you moving like an adult as your subconscious is barely able to lift your head off the floor. Who knows what time my class was that day? Who knows if I did the assignment we were tasked to complete? I did not know a thing in that moment until a flyer was shoved into my hand. I have no clue what the flyer was, but it sparked an idea.

An idea, especially a grand one, can feel like a body snatcher. Like a force entering and controlling your body. That idea can expand inside of you, strengthening every muscle you have and activating all the nerve-endings in your brain. You feel supernatural. Then your system starts to malfunction, and your genius idea begins to detach itself from you. Feeling foreign, unreal, and unachievable.

My pièce de résistance was to accept every flyer, business card, newspaper, pamphlet, etc. that was offered to me outside and create a cohesive collage. I decreed that I could not say "no", no matter how anti-social I was feeling that day. Originally, if I slipped up and turned down an ad, I had decided to write the word “no” on whatever surface my collage ended up on. I did not remember that stipulation until I began writing this, so I clearly have not kept count of how many times I said “no”. I did not even begin going through my materials and telling the story these ads had to tell until we were in quarantine, about 6 years after my idea was conceived.

My intuition decided that the collage should be mounted onto cardboard, so I hoarded a few boxes that held the many items I ordered throughout the beginning of the pandemic. I dumped all the papers I had collected over the years onto the floor. Added fabric I had not been utilizing for anything else. Grabbed my paint sticks, used construction paper, stapler, glue, tape, and the sharpest scissors in my home. (The scissors might be meant to cut meat, but we have never used it for that, so its’ intended use is non-consequential.)

It no longer was a thought. My vision was reforming and rearranging itself. Stories were being played out, projecting from brain, through my glasses, hovering over the floor beneath me like I was the artificial intelligence in a Sci- Fi film. My hands were moving double-time to keep up with my vision. The feeling I had when I first came up with the idea had finally fully intoxicated me. I was scheduling time to create on a weekly basis.

The ability to cultivate art I could be proud of outside of writing was something I convinced myself I did not have. People surrender to the phrase “I can’t”, without pondering the possibility of being capable of whatever feat is in question. The amazing thing is that the feats do not need to be extravagant. Our vision is often tunneled to only acknowledge a few narrow options of what we think we can accomplish.

Writing about my masterpiece is compelling me to return to the project. It has been almost a year since I have worked on it. Half of me is dreading pulling the work-in-progress out of its’ surprisingly stylishly cute, large, deep blue tub-like bin. The other portion of my mind is intrigued to lay my eyes on what I have done so far. I am going to re-read the narratives that were pouring out of me onto the cardboard and complete the story arcs.

I will not wait until I move into my apartment. I will ignore the strange looks from my family when they struggle to step over me, as they peak in. I will glue, paint, rip, staple, tape, sweat over, attempt to sew, and cut until my project is complete. There will be no time restraints. I will place mindful restrictions on any disparaging thoughts that might try to arise within me. Ads of Humanity may never inform the halls of a museum or gallery. I can guarantee that it will hang from the walls in my home. I will run my fingers along something I know will be one of my greatest achievements.

art
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About the Creator

Jada Ferguson

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