For context, this happened a few years ago during my second last year of high school. I recently shared this story with my friends at university, and they argued over whether I was in the wrong, which is why I’m posting this.
In my second last year of high school, a girl in our grade passed away. She was terminally ill, and the school did a short assembly speech and a memorial was set up. Admittedly, I was not that close with her. We were acquainted and spoke occasionally, but we weren’t “close friends,” per se.
On the day before her memorial, I drew a portrait of her and brought it to school. I noticed that in the area set aside for her memorial, there were some framed photographs of her as well as portraits drawn by her friends. To be clear, I was not even planning on sharing my portrait to begin with. I intended to see if other people were sharing portraits first, since I didn’t want to overstep. I would also say that I am a good artist. I had a reputation as the “class artist”.
When I placed my portrait next to the other portraits drawn of her, one of her friends came up to me and told me that my drawing “wasn’t welcome”. I was confused, since I saw that there were other portraits, but I realised that they were all drawn only by her closer circle of friends. I was also told that my drawing was so ugly that it had to have been on purpose to mock her. Multiple people mocked my drawing.
What I don’t understand is that even if my drawing was ugly, that was obviously never the intention. I made the drawing to commemorate her, and she had no right to disrespect me so openly. Even if she were a close friend of hers, she didn’t have any right to decide whose artwork could or could not be placed on the memorial.
AITA for refusing to take down my artwork?
EDIT: This was years ago. I do not have the drawing or any images of the drawing. I do remember that it was a pencil drawing done on a sheet of paper. All the other drawings at the memorial were also pencil drawings.
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For context, this happened a few years ago during my second last year of high school. I recently shared this story with my friends at university, and they argued over whether I was in the wrong, which is why I’m posting this.
In my second last year of high school, a girl in our grade passed away. She was terminally ill, and the school did a short assembly speech and a memorial was set up. Admittedly, I was not that close with her. We were acquainted and spoke occasionally, but we weren’t “close friends,” per se.
On the day before her memorial, I drew a portrait of her and brought it to school. I noticed that in the area set aside for her memorial, there were some framed photographs of her as well as portraits drawn by her friends. To be clear, I was not even planning on sharing my portrait to begin with. I intended to see if other people were sharing portraits first, since I didn’t want to overstep. I would also say that I am a good artist. I had a reputation as the “class artist”.
When I placed my portrait next to the other portraits drawn of her, one of her friends came up to me and told me that my drawing “wasn’t welcome”. I was confused, since I saw that there were other portraits, but I realised that they were all drawn only by her closer circle of friends. I was also told that my drawing was so ugly that it had to have been on purpose to mock her. Multiple people mocked my drawing.
What I don’t understand is that even if my drawing was ugly, that was obviously never the intention. I made the drawing to commemorate her, and she had no right to disrespect me so openly. Even if she were a close friend of hers, she didn’t have any right to decide whose artwork could or could not be placed on the memorial.
AITA for refusing to take down my artwork?
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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> 1: I refused to take down my drawing
2: I might be the asshole because my drawing could be interpreted as mocking a dead person, and I refused the request of a grieving person.
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Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
If you did it to mock (you said you didn’t) or if the portrait was obviously unflattering, YTA. If not, you’re NTA. Even if you tried your best, if it looked insulting, it should have been kept private. There is 0 way for me to judge this though, so it’s impossible to answer honestly.
This is a matter of your own pride I think. You admitted you weren’t really close to her. Your impression is that they think your work is ugly. That hurt your pride, and now you refuse to take it down. I would normally agree with that, but if her close peers are telling you it’s disrespectful and to remove it, you should. It’s not about you, it’s about respecting the girl who passed away. And if the greatest respect you can give her is to remove your drawing, even though it was made with the best of intentions, you should. Don’t let your pride/ego make you the bad guy in a situation that you shouldn’t even have a role in. It’s not about you. I’m sure her friends were rude about it, but take into consideration it’s not even about the quality of the art. If someone close to you died and all of a sudden you saw random people who didn’t know your loved one leaving their art and mourning, it wouldn’t make sense. Maybe it’s really not about the art.
You said that you intended to honor the deceased. I can’t know if the “multiple people” who mocked your picture were bullying you or if it really was an unflattering picture. You admitted that you and the deceased weren’t close.
On the surface, since I can’t know what anyone was thinking, it seems that everyone behaved badly. No one should have mocked your artwork, and you should have taken it down in the interest of peace at a funeral.
ESH
YTA-I’m not going to argue with you over the attractiveness of the drawing but you did it for you, not her and you are making it about you.
NTA. Based on your comment about how ONLY her group of friends insulted your drawing, it’s clear it’s them bullying you and trying to seem “closer” to the deceased by being the only ones who drew pictures of her. Tell a teacher or trusted adult, show the drawing and your references, and just know that they’re either grieving or just being mean girls.
Nta
I’m not sure why people imagine they get to gatekeep how others grieve. We aren’t talking a close family funeral, this was a school memorial open to all.
Her friends sound like assholes..mocking your portrait? That’s just rude.
YTA you shouldn’t make the situation about yourself and your art, I understand your point, but you can make art about anything, if you do it about people who died it always has to be with respect and the authorization of family members and loved ones or at least it is what I consider morally correct
INFO. We would really have to see the picture.
YTA. You didn’t draw the portrait to mock her but you did make a girls tragic early death about you…and even years later you’re making this moment about you. Her friends likely felt like you were encroaching on this moment. They lashed out at you in grief, which isn’t fair but they were children who had just lost a friend. You should let this one go.
YTA
Who draws a portrait of someone they weren’t close with who just passed away? It’s either morbid, or you were hoping to score compliments off your artwork from people who are grieving.
NTA Art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. You can’t control what other people might take from it but your piece was done with love and kindness and that girl had no right to say otherwise. Some people like to be the ‘victim’ in any situation. I’m sure the deceased girl’s parents would have loved it if they’d had the chance to even see it. And she probably would have loved it too.
NAH. You were all kids who lost someone their own age that they knew. For some of those kids it may have even been their first experience with death. I know death is always hard but there’s something a little extra jarring about losing someone your age when you’re that young. Everybody grieves differently and while you didn’t do anything wrong, I also understand why they lashed out. I’m sure there was nothing wrong with the drawing and they were just being teenagers, which is emotional enough on its own without adding losing a friend to the mix.
NTA. They were just clique-y.
NTA
NTA
You had no ill intent and went out of your way for someone you weren’t even close to. No one has the right to gate keep a friking memorial or allowed to stop someone showing respect to the deceased. You didn’t have to draw a picture, but you did. You didn’t have to put it up to show respect, but you did. AS friends belittled you out of grief.
NAH lots of people died who were in school with me, and although I didn’t do this per se I would have thought it no problem to do something commemorative for someone who passed that I wasn’t extremely close with. Even if you didn’t know the person loss is hard to deal with, especially people adjacent to you and YOUNG regardless there is some amount of grief. Art is a great way to express those feelings even if you’re not great at it. You did nothing wrong as long as you are being truthful about it not being to mock.
YTA, you say you weren’t that close with her and they were. Maybe it was a good drawing, but grieving people don’t always react the best. You should’ve been the bigger person and taken it down when asked, especially since you seem to be more worried about compliments on your art than the girl who died.
I think my verdict here is ESH, but a pretty light ESH. You were all children, probably around 16-17, who were most likely experiencing the loss of a peer for the first time. People of all ages struggle to manage their grief, but especially young people who are still learning to navigate their emotions in general.
The girl’s friends shouldn’t have lashed out at you and mocked your drawing or “gate-kept” how you can express your grief – that was an AH move; however, I can understand that teenagers going through immense grief might see someone who wasn’t close with the deceased drawing an “ugly” picture of her as mocking. Or the “class artist” drawing a picture of the deceased that’s better than the others as using her death as an opportunity to show off. Their reaction was certainly AH territory, but it’s also hard to look at a bunch of grieving teenagers lashing out and call them AHs.
As for you, I don’t think you were in the wrong to want to express your grief through drawing a portrait of the deceased. Art is a great way to explore your grief, especially as you too were a grieving teen who probably hadn’t lost a peer before. Even if you didn’t know her well, it’s sad and scary to be so young and seeing someone your age pass away to something so frightening. If the memorial was free for anyone to add to, then there was nothing wrong with adding to that. If it wasn’t, then that’s another story. What puts you into AH territory for me is that you seem to be more affected by how your art was perceived and how you were treated than the larger picture of potentially hurting the people closest to this girl at her memorial. It seems like even now you’re trying to emphasize that what’s important is that you were a good artist. I think your reaction was a bit AH-ish, but in the same vein that theirs was: you were grieving teenagers who didn’t know how to handle their emotions well.
Really what should have happened is that an adult should have been involved in sorting this out. I think you were all grieving teens who needed guidance, and you were lashing out at each other due to the circumstances. I think it’s time to let this go and accept that it was just a sad situation that a bunch of teenagers didn’t know how to cope with. This is all just my opinion though, it’s a very nuanced situation that we only have a glimpse at.
Pretty hard to say without being able to see the portrait, but I’m going to lean towards a gentle YTA unintentionally. You say you didn’t know the girl well; I’m curious what the driving motivation was then for you to make the drawing. Being a talented artist doesn’t automatically mean you have
authorization to participate in all artistic displays you see, so what made you feel moved to to do so this time?
Memorials are for people who are actively grieving and suffering from the death of a loved one; if they felt like you were using their friend as an opportunity to make it more about your talent than the loss of the young woman, I can see why they reacted negatively. They don’t get carte Blanche to be assholes, but people going through grief live with their emotions simmering under the surface.
I’d just take it as a learning experience OP. You’re not a bad person, I think this was just a misstep from someone young. Funerals are for the living as they say; if you want to support those grieving someone you didn’t know, focus on supporting the people who are actively suffering.
NTA