Death of a Snowman

Whilst slightly bored on Sunday night I started playing with a computer drawing program, and this is what I made:



It might be funny if you're an actuary or then again it might not be. I think it's amusing but I also quite enjoy Ben Stiller not being able to turn left in Zoolander so I'm possibly not a good judge.

What it definitely does do, is draw out the tragic, mayfly-like life of your average English snowman. Each year, thousands of snowmen are born here in England. How many of them make it past their first year of existence? None. They fall prey to all sorts of ends - meltings, beheadings, avalanches and plain good old fashioned cholera. The only certain thing is that come 1 year later they are all gone, as if they were never there.

I feel that these passings go largely unremarked. Where's the large memorial for them in a London Park? Where's the minute's silence? Where are the armbands, the ribbons, or the paper flowers? Does nobody care any more?

It's a travesty.

So what I hoped to do with this piece of art is to first make people laugh like they've never laughed before. But then maybe they'll think: "That snowman cartoon was really, really funny, funnier even than Derek Zoolander's inability to turn left. But now that I give it more thought, there was a very serious point being made there too. I've never considered the plight of the English snowmen before but that picture has made me rethink. In fact, it's made me see the whole of my life with a different perspective. I feel renewed, reborn and remade. I am a better person. I care, and I will do all in my power to aid the Snowmen and ensure their need is recognised by the wider population. Oh yes."

If just four hundred people think this way then I, as an artist, will have succeeded. I will have Changed The World For The Better.

And that has to be a great thing.