{"id":54948,"date":"2020-10-06T15:49:55","date_gmt":"2020-10-06T21:49:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=54948"},"modified":"2020-11-19T01:50:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-19T07:50:40","slug":"still-here-david-habben","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/still-here-david-habben\/","title":{"rendered":"Still Here: David Habben"},"content":{"rendered":"

With our \u201cStill Here\u201d series, we are checking in with members of Utah\u2019s art community to see what the past six months has meant for them. David Habben is an illustrator, artist, and educator. His unique work has been featured in children\u2019s books, magazines, and even on snowboards. He\u2019s received awards from 3×3 Creative Quarterly, Communication Arts, Graphis Magazine, and the AIGA,\u00a0including a 2020 AIGA SLC Copper Ingot.\u00a0<\/span>David\u2019s first author-illustrated children\u2019s book, \u201cMr. Sherman\u2019s Cloud\u201d (Page Street Publishing), was named one of Bank Street College\u2019s Best Children\u2019s Books of the Year for 2020.\u00a0<\/span>David\u2019s education includes a BFA in Illustration\u00a0(BYU)\u00a0<\/span>and MFA in Studio Art\u00a0(UofU)<\/span>. He was also a Children\u2019s Book Design Fellow at Chronicle Books<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>“I\u2019m lucky. I don\u2019t mean that in some casual way or a take me to Vegas way. I mean that I\u2019m sitting here in the safety of my own home, typing away on a laptop, while my family sleeps safely in warm beds. I\u2019m about to enjoy a weekend, maybe differently than I used to, but it will still be a break. I\u2019ll spend time outside and maybe wash the car. I\u2019ll spend time with my kids and probably be both charmed by their magic and impatient with them. I didn\u2019t use to think of these things involving luck. As a man of faith, I could call them blessings, but even then, I\u2019m lucky to have those too.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m lucky because, despite the changing schedules, the quarantining, and mask-wearing, my most significant burden in the last several months has been an increase in worry. Some days that amplifies to become momentary anxiety, but it would be an exaggeration to say that I live in that state. Even then, my worry is less about contracting a tenacious virus as much as it is about the effects of worry on everyone else. Worries become fears and fear, well, we know where that can lead.<\/p>\n

My classrooms have become 2D backlight virtual conversations. I might as well be orbiting in a space station as I do my best to prepare the next generation of illustrators for their post-graduate life. They smile, and we turn on the video and turn off mute and seem to have a conversation, but it\u2019s not the same. I hear their hopes and questions, and they are my own. What\u2019s the next step? How can I succeed? What if I fail? They worry, and I worry, but I don\u2019t want them to see that worry. I want them to find faith in my faith, as I\u2019ve done with so many others. I\u2019m lucky in that way, too, because I\u2019ve seen and felt great faith in so many ways and in so many people. People that now are on the other end of a video call or text message. Faith seems to be more accessible when you\u2019re talking face to face, but we try.<\/p>\n

We try because it\u2019s all we can do, and we try because the alternative brings a bitter taste of cowardice to our tongues and minds. We try, and we wait for those with power to wield it with more compassion and morality. We try, and we wait for those with education and experience to bring healing and prevention. We try each day because \u2026 we\u2019re lucky.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re lucky. I don\u2019t mean that in some casual way or in a take us to Vegas way. I mean that we\u2019re sitting here in the safety of our worry, finding ways to try and make it better while we wait. We\u2019re lucky because we can do that in the midst of distraction. We\u2019re lucky because tomorrow will allow us to do that again, and so will the day after that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With our \u201cStill Here\u201d series, we are checking in with members of Utah\u2019s art community to see what the past six months has meant for them. David Habben is an illustrator, artist, and educator. His unique work has been featured in children\u2019s books, magazines, and even on snowboards. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3837],"tags":[874],"class_list":["post-54948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-still-here","tag-david-habben"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/YearningToBreatheFree_Poster.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-16 10:51:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54948"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54954,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54948\/revisions\/54954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}