Calligrame

In this assignment, I was tasked with making a calligrame, which is sort of a drawing made from strings of texts. The idea was to first write a 300-500 word letter to your future self in 20 years and then turn that into the calligrame. This was the letter I wrote:

Dear David Zulian of September 19, 2043,

Holy shit, you are going to be 39 years old. Almost 40. I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you of that. Even now I’m constantly thinking about my age, I can’t imagine you're any better. I wonder if you would look back and still consider me you. I hope so. I hope you're someone I can be proud of, but I also hope that I am, right now, someone that you won’t feel ashamed of. Are you ashamed of my constant procrastination? I’m writing this letter last minute for my class assignment after all. Do you think it's funny that I am still considering film as a job? Have I had any success or did I give up as soon as it gets hard?

That’s funny, in a letter to myself I manage to make it all about me. I guess that’s ok, but I hope you think about other people more often than I do. I know I’m not a bad person and I’m hard on myself sometimes. I bet you’re the same.

I keep thinking of writing cynical self-aware things, but I figure you will see right through that, so I’ll do my best not to.

I hope you manage to find love, someone you can trust. I hope she is special. I hope what you have is special. I can’t even imagine finding someone or something special, so I hope I can only imagine what you feel right now with her. If it ever gets hard for you, like I imagine it will because you will overthink shit, just remember that if I think you’re very lucky.

Wait, do you have kids? Woah. That’s something I really can’t imagine. Are they your world? They better be. I hope you make them happy. I hope making them happy makes you happy.

Are Mom and Dad still here? Maybe not. I’m really sorry. They are pretty much everything to me right now. I imagine that in the future you were as close with them as I am now. Maybe not AS close, but still very close. I hope you cherish your time with them, they are the best. I love you Mom and Dad. 

Are you still talking with Anna?

Has the world ended? I know I am just asking questions, and I know you won’t be able to answer them until it’s too late. 

I wonder if you even remember me.

I have a lot of hopes for you, which I think is unfair. Whatever happened has happened, I just hope you’re in the best situation you can be. Unfortunately, that puts most of the work on me, which means being the best might be unrealistic. You know, it doesn’t necessarily HAVE to be the best situation. Just good. 

I’m going to stop re-reading and rewriting this now, because if I keep trying to revise it my head might explode. Well, I guess I’ll see you later! 

Ok, one last: I hope you learn to love yourself as you are.

From,

David Zulian of September 19, 2023

I tried to be as honest as possible in the letter, willing to open up myself to ask what I would want to ask a future me. It's a very revealing letter, at the very least in the way it reveals how much I was overthinking what I was saying. 

I then took a picture of myself in what I was wearing, as I wrote the letter. After that I did a simple sketch of how I looked.

The idea was to capture myself exactly as I was while writing the letter: a messy, stupid kid in a sweater. 

This is the end result. I made sure to keep myself facing forward, so whoever was reading the letter would feel like I am talking as directly and frankly to them as if I was saying it to their face. I also wanted to replace my face with introduction that says "Dear David Zulian", because all the words coming from this guys mouth is the letter. I like the abstract look of the calligrams, it looks like you're seeing the form of my being through the things I write. But only a simple form, just a projection of insecurities and questions, which is reinforced by the fact my character has no face.