American Clock - World Made

My 7th grade son and I both enjoy photography and love people. In the above picture, we tried to create an image that exemplifies the value of diversity, benefits of inclusion, and detriment of hatred and prejudice. After looking at a picture of his classmates lying in a circle, we felt that the diversity of students, as well as the circular pose, provided the perfect start for our image. To achieve a more colorful image, we decided to greatly saturate the photograph’s color.

America's Founding Fathers wisely adopted the motto E Pluribus Unum ("out of many, one") to describe our country. Diversity is our strength. It gives us the ability to set high ideals and standards; to lead families, communities, states, our nation and the world; to be strong, creative, loving, compassionate and caring; and to be able to solve and work to solve many of life’s problems while not forgetting that individuals are the basic and essential elements of humanity.

In the image, the children are lying in a circle. Each child represents one small part of the measurement of time on a clock. As the hands of the clock constantly turn, they pass over every part of the clock’s face measuring infinite portions of seconds, minutes and hours. No one part, whether a second, minute, hour or portion thereof, is greater than the next, and all are necessary for the measurement of time past, present, and future.

My son and I are sure that each child on our people clock has a special moment. How great it must feel to represent 12 and 6 when the time is 6:00 a.m., 6:00 p.m., 12:30 a.m., or 12:30 p.m. Yet, in the big picture, those exact times last less than a second, have no greater weight than any other time, and require the existence of every other fraction of a second on the clock to give them value and meaning.

Our hope is that people viewing American Clock - World Made, will immediately see and respond to differences in the children’s skin color, appearance, and clothes while at the same time feeling their bond. We hope the American flag will place the children within the larger context of community and country. Hopefully, people will embrace and understand that no matter how insignificant they feel (even if they feel they are only a small portion of a second); they are an integral part of family, community, state, country, and the world. Finally, we hope that people who feel too significant will understand that they cannot be measured, belong, do their job, or live a complete life without every other individual who has touched or will touch even a small portion of their life.

Whether we perceive our self as a second, minute, hour, or a portion of those, let each of us love all people.