Once upon a time . . . I was told the world wasn't cupcakes and rainbows, that magic isn't real, war exists, and that reality must be faced. As I continued to pour myself into all different kinds of fantastical stories, I began to wonder - when did fantasy stop and reality start? Was there even such a boundary, or were each merely a concept used to decipher what should be taken as truth? Every story - fictional or not - holds powerful education to dispelling evil; that much has always been clear to those who are strong in belief. The issue, then, in a world chained by a “reality” so often tied to negative connotation, is that once something is labeled as “fantasy,” people stop listening. Adults go about their daily lives choosing to ignore the truth of stories - even if they read them -  and by doing so often disregard their own. Well, one day I made a choice - a choice to believe that fantasy is as real as history itself, and by casting aside the ‘acting’ of adulthood, could the lessons within these stories finally be learned and the magic unleashed. The difficulty lies in getting other people to believe they can do the same.  

Drawing from the theory of reality and working through symbolism, my thesis presents the landscape of my memories - sets in which my life has taken place - whereon each scene has been . . . twisted in varying ways to include fantasy imagery. Each ‘set’ could be read as a singular story or the entire collection could be read as one narrative. Either way, I invite the audience to place themselves and their memories within my own and make the choice whether or not to believe these events to be ‘real,’ and with that reality, to unlock the lessons within. So, how about it? Will you fall down the rabbit hole?   

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