Written Response:

Reading this article was eye-opening for me. My topic for the literature review is based on place, something that has been a theme in my artwork and life. As I’ve said before, my memories as a kid have influenced every aspect of my life. I can remember my journey as an artist and how prominent art has been in my life.

As a child, turtles were my world. Old, wise and understanding, I felt a close connection with my turtles, especially when my sisters would play without me. I spent my summer days playing with bugs, making rings out of peach pits and creating my own perfume out of flowers and water. My imagination was raging; I dreamt of worlds that would never exist, words that my turtle would never speak, and friendships with animals and bugs of all kinds. When I received the book Old Turtle, I felt like I finally found the world I belonged in.

The pages were painted with vibrancies and colors that spoke in a language I was just beginning to understand. I saw the brushstrokes and the drips, the way the colors became animals or clouds, oceans or mountains. I was learning the language of art, love and peace. In my eyes, Old Turtle was the voice of reason, the one who looked for peace and equality in all species and reminded those of what is most important only when they forgot.

This turtle emulated everything I saw in my own turtles. They were my best friends.

I reread the book over ten years later and found that the whole time Old Turtle was arguing that God was everything. God IS. But to me God was nothing. I reflected on this newfound element in a book that I must’ve read 50 times and wondered if this was a world I was meant to be a part of. Even now, writing this, I question the differences in my outlook on life over the years. The innocence and hope for peace and equality has been replaced with the expectancy of competition and a race to be better than the person sitting next to you. Sometimes, I wish there was an Old Turtle for us all to respect and understand, regardless of whom we pray to, or if we even pray at all.