The latest numbers coming from Gaza state that there are about 77,575 injured Palestinians as of April 28, 2024.
I honestly see this number as a very humble one, but regardless, I said this in 2014 and it bears repeating: considering the types of weapons Israel is using in Gaza, the overwhelming majority of these injuries are severe and critical. So when we say that well over 77,000 people are injured in Gaza, we're talking about tens of thousands of people who have ended up with a lifelong disability. Thousands of amputees with no proper care. Thousands who will not be able to walk or see again. Many won't be able to go back to school or work again. Burn victims without the means to reduce or take the pain away. Many on life support and many more who will not even make it.
So many open wounds, both literally and figuratively, that we need to keep present in our conversation about Gaza.
This home in the Fatih district of Istanbul has ancient Roman foundations under Ottoman-period archways, with the house dating to the start of the Turkish republic (c. 1920's).
it's funny, I was talking to someone last night who didn't really know what an illustrator was. so when I introduced myself as one, he gave a speech that would've probably gone over well with a gallery artist, but which was precision-tailored to make any illustrator within a 50 mile radius go into eyes-glowing-red kill mode.
his speech was about how there is a difference between craft and art, and how people can practice craft (as in, skillfully execute a painting) without it having any artistic merit.
so I'm someone who gets paid to paint waffles for restaurant menus and dinosaurs for museums exhibits, and AHHHHHH! AHHHHHHH! you can't make art without it being something something you've made. does that make sense? like every illustrator I know has an individual way of approaching any given imagery that is informed by a lifetime of inspiration, and of passive intake of culture, and of the specific mistakes they make because of whatever their particular mass of grey matter deems as important thing to render or unimportant, just fuck it up.
I can make something that is informed by both a century of Canadian print-making and by my own particular neurosis, and it can also be commissioned commercial imagery that I regurgitate without care because I want to pay my mortgage. everything is art, nothing isn't art, art is something sticky and impossible to shake off of you.
anyway he got very wide-eyed and said "I'm sorry if I offended you," so today I feel a bit bad for having gotten so, uh.... excited.