Reflection

I was four, living in South Korea, and I went outside to make a snowman for the first time in my life. I rolled the snow as hard as I could to make the white, pristine snowman I had seen on television. However, what I ended up with was very different from the animations I saw. My snowman was gray, with dots of black and small speckles of white. It wasn’t until I moved to Virginia I was able to make a white snowman. I only learned later on that it was the fine dust in the Korean air that made the snowman the gray color it was. In my illustration, the television screens show the air pollution caused by humans, which is reflected in the snowman. The reflected images of air pollution dirty the snowman, making it appear sooty. The snowman is supposed to represent the purity of winter, but due to the pollution in the air, it is made mucky. Creating ‘The Gray Snowman’ was a nostalgia trip, as it revived many fond memories of that time, but also led to me revisiting the polluted air that I left behind. Many areas suffer from this gray predicament. From China to India to even places like California in the U.S., the air quality has taken a toll on the health of those areas. Air is not a factor that can be controlled. It moves how it wants and goes where it wishes. It could creep up to even those who think that the atmosphere is not something they should be concerned about, that isn't their problem. Air pollution is not something that can be ignored, it is not an issue of one place or nation, it is a problem that can affect or will affect anyone at any point.