Spectrums Within Under Our Skin
Crayola Crayon
100 x 70
x 2
in
Spectrums Within Under Our Skin is 144 girls made from Crayola Crayon. There are 12 different girls, each girl is made from the 12 colors I see when I look at the color spectrum. I wish we could see the light within us all and the variations that make each of us that light passing through a prism showing the many spectrums within us all. We are more than a classification in terms of a position between two extremes, we are all the colors and an untold number of possibilities.
The way we see others and how one is seen has been a subject that I have had in my life since I was small. I am both Native American and Caucasian but growing up, I felt more times than I cared to count that I was not enough of one or the other, and that pull made me question all parts of myself. If I did not look like _____, could I be ______? Where did I fit if I was not a part of this or that group? I have had conversations with many from other races and nationalities, and they, too, have struggled. Is my skin too dark or not dark enough, the texture of my hair or the accent that one hears when I speak? All this history, this past came to a head one day while getting my children ready for school. We were pulling together pencils, colored pencils, folders, and crayons. They had to have four sets of 24 crayons each, and we had leftovers from sets of the past years; some colors had never been used, and we were combining them so we’d know how many new boxes would be required. The kids talked about their friends at the new school and friends of their past school. In the conversation, they were describing the children “the girl with a big laugh, she has yellow hair or the boy I ate lunch with, he was a helper, and he told the funniest stories,” in a very casual descriptive manner with no malice or notice to the differences. This made me think more about how we see people and how one is judged. The smell of the crayons, the vivid colors, and the thoughts of my youth brought me to this crayon project. How we change our viewpoints of people and how we judge people based on race and color. We are all one below that surface, that surface of skin, no matter the color, the shape, or the origin. - Holly Wilson
