As I looked around the gallery at the pieces of artwork created, a sense of calm rushed over me. The artwork displayed in the room was beautiful, there was no denying that. The work was produced by artists, after all, and they had spent much time perfecting their pieces. I, of course, was not an artist. At least, I wasn’t an artist in the same sense that they were. Their creativity shown through on canvases and in photography and sculptures, while mine had only ever been on display in my writing. This was the first and likely last art contest I would enter, and yet, I knew, looking around the room, that mine may be a contender for winning.

Right next to me, there was a traditional oil painting of a landscape that utilized color and precision to portray a specific setting. So delicate in its exactness, I found myself, the observer, getting lost in the scenery it provided. To me, the setting was that of an English countryside, but the young man that had created the piece was standing in front of the easel, anxiously pulling on his suspenders, so I thought it best not to ask any questions.

On the other side of me, another artist was unveiling another piece of work, but hers was much more contemporary. She had torn hundreds of eyes out of magazines and covered an entire canvas with them. Of course, I did not ask her what the eyes represented, as the purpose of contemporary art is to provoke thought. My own interpretation of the piece was that it represented diversity by providing the observer with the opportunity to understand that the lens from which one person views the world does not always align with the lens another crafts their interpretation from.

Across the room from me, a woman dressed in baggy, oversized clothes stood in front of an unveiled sculpture. She glanced around the room, as if she wanted to ensure she wasn’t attracting any attention to herself before she hesitantly pulled the white sheet off the sculpture, revealing her artwork. I was surprised as I watched, because beneath the sheet was the sculpture of a nude woman, and I turned my attention back to the artist, who so carefully concealed her own body in oversized clothes and considered what a contrast her conservative appearance was to that of her more liberal work. To me, the artist was perhaps even more interesting than her sculpture.

The artwork I made for the contest was not as confrontational, but instead, it had been created with the intention of provoking thought. In the piece, I had utilized a small paintbrush to embed a thin, white line across a canvas that I had painted black. The line started on the left side of the painting, but it ended abruptly, only three fourths of the way across the canvas. I wanted the observer to question what the ending of the line represented. I wanted the observer to wonder why it ended so abruptly, as well as to contemplate why it was unable to complete its journey across the dark canvas, making it from one side to the next.

My own interpretation was that the dark canvas represented life and how dark it and often times, the people in our lives, truly are, while the white line represented the moments and the few people in life that actually make the often mundane trek worth it. Originally, I questioned whether it was somewhat cliche to utilize white and black in the piece, but then I realized colorism was perhaps the best way to encourage the observer to consider the concepts of darkness and lightness in their own lives. From an analytical perspective, those were the only two colors whose contrasts most captured what I wanted the artwork to convey.

When I created the piece, I thought of all the darkness I had encountered in life and all the dark moments people had created for me. As I painted the white canvas black, I felt a sense of relief, as if their chaos was exiting me and finding its way into my art. The white line, on the other hand, much like the color, was a stark contrast to the darkness. At first, I worried that the observer may interpret it as a hospital instrument used to monitor a heart rate, but then I realized that interpretation would not necessarily be unwelcome. To me, however, the precision of the thin, white line represented orderliness, or rather, the absence of chaos. To me, it represented the moments and people that had, in some way, beckoned me through the darkness of the whirlwind of situations that life had created around me, and that I, somehow, had the strength to endure. To me, it represented the moments and the people that made me want that line to continue.

I stepped back from the canvas and took a deep breath, again, feeling a sense of calm wash over me. After all, the hardest part of the art project had been completed. There is no interview with art. Instead, it falls upon the artist to not only ask themselves questions about their work and what they want it to represent but to utilize their creativity to answer those questions as well, which is what I had done.

As I glanced around the room, I felt confident that my piece may be a contender for winning. When I looked back at the black canvas with the thin, white line, only making it three fourths of the way across the piece of art before reaching its abrupt end, I thought about all the people and places both the darkness and lightness represented. Perhaps more importantly, however, I realized that it didn’t matter if I won an award for my work. No acknowledgement could surpass the feeling of triumph that I felt, knowing that the piece of artwork I created was symbolic of the difficulties I had already overcome at such a young age.

In spite of all the darkness on that canvas, along with the moments and the people they represented, I was standing there, in front of my artwork, and I smiled to myself, looking at the thin, white line, recalling the few, though significant people that I had compressed into that thin, white line, as well as the fond memories of them that I had carried with me.

For whatever reason, though admittedly, not for a lack of once trying, my own thin, white line, unlike that of so many others, had not abruptly ended. For whatever reason, even though the darkness people had created for me had, at times, been too much, I had survived. Looking at the thin, white line, I realized that in so many ways, and perhaps for reasons beyond my understanding, I had already won, and that achievement meant far more to me than any award ever could.

Of course, I did not vocalize what the artwork represented to me. After all, I created it to provoke thought, not to force an interpretation on anyone. To me, however, the thin, white line, with its abrupt ending, was in honor of so many that had been overwhelmed by the dark situations they encountered that were out of their control and did not make it through. To me, the thin, white line, with its abrupt ending was in honor of those that had been overwhelmed by the dark situations they had encountered that were out of their control, yet somehow, did manage to find their way through. To me, the thin, white line was a silent salute to them and both their victories and their losses, and it was a silent salute to me and mine too.