Hayley M. Heffernan

Life in the Trenches#

Artist’s Statement#

Life in the Trenches is a collage made with elements from different magazines, Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic and Life, all dating from the 1950s to the 1970s. It was used as a postcard to a friend, Zaz, who was living in Spain. At the time, I was spending the months traveling around the American West and living on the road. To me, this piece reflects the beauty of the vastly different experiences we both were having, while also maintaining notes of sorrow. We were both running, or sailing away. Searching for the beauty this world has to offer, contrasted with the darkness that surrounded our hearts and minds, exhibited in the shadowy figures in the foreground. It is sort of tongue in cheek, both genuine in the themes it expresses, while also being ironic or sarcastic. Life in the trenches, our first world problems that pale in comparison to the real trenches people across the world suffer in.

About the Artist#

Hayley M. Heffernan is from the Rust Belt of Akron, Ohio. Her short fiction piece, Nightlight #4, won an award in the Emerging Writer’s Contest at Fort Lewis College (2021). The same piece rewritten as a ten minute play was a finalist in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (2023).