Rooted.
“Can you feel it?”
“What?”
“Everything.”
Today it is easy to get swept up into the rat race of it all: wake up, eat, work, sleep, repeat. This became main character Andrew’s personality and the sole driving force in his life. It isn’t until he’s forced to reckon with the force of nature (literally), that this new change of perspective turns his whole world around.
What is it?
Rooted is designed to inspire readers to think about the environmental crisis facing our world and the choices that we make. My goal is to entice them with my artistic representation of our natural world, to try to create the organic beauty that can be captured by a human's hand, then destroy it. I want to evoke emotions of devastation, helplessness and protectiveness towards the demolition of our environment. It is my intention that the reader walks away from this project feeling a need to get involved; in whatever way, shape, or form that may be. This is not a fight we can win one by one. Every single course of action counts big or small. We cannot let the gravity of the situation overwhelm us.
So, I hope this art inspires you. To go outside, to recycle that can, to sign that petition, and to fall in love with nature again and again. Nature is art and vice versa, so let those things carry you through the echoes of corporate greed today and lead your heart. It knows the way.
The Project
This project was made for my MassArt 2025-2026 thesis. We were given the spring semester to complete and set up the project that would be displayed as gallery pieces and a process book. I knew from the moment I learned of the thesis project that I would be making a graphic novel. The full project is 70 pages of fully colored, lined and scripted story, despite the project commonly consisting of 4-7 separate pieces tied together by the same theme. So alongside the required process book we were meant to have prepared, I was making my monster of a novel. It was more than a challenge, but if I could go back I wouldn’t change a thing about this process. It was an incredible opportunity and I truly learned more about seeing things through to completion above all else.
Process Work
“Character sketches” 4/4 pages (2025)
“Summer pages: Full Layout” (2025)
“Winter pages: Full Layout” (2025)
“Installation Mock-up” (2025)
“Fall pages: Full Layout” (2025)
“Spring pages: Full Layout (sketches)” (2025)
The Exhibition
(February 5th, 2026)
Andrew
Meet the characters!
Andrew is the main character of my thesis. He is a generic, average, stereotypical office worker. Andrew is not a man to take risks. He works hard and does what he’s told to slowly move up in the world like everyone else is expected to. As the story continues, we see his corporate programming unwind. It isn’t until he realizes that he has already changed, and like the forest, outgrown his roots. He is bigger. He is better than this, and he is ready to make things right. Finally, choosing change and new growth.
Stag
Stag is the secondary main character of my thesis. Created to represent nature in its full, they are equally as harsh, compassionate, and beautiful. We see this through their somewhat carefree ease when in contact with the wild. Andrew and Stag are meant to both compliment and contrast each other. They are supposed to (especially in the beginning) represent everything the other despises. This forces the construction of a neutral ground, somewhere for them both to learn, make an impact and grow.