Jeff Hazelden’s new book, these are adults, chronicles six Columbus residents’ distinct pathways to adulthood. Their roadmaps might have deviated from traditional milestones or a popularly perceived sequence, but they find themselves enjoying fulfilling and impactful lives. The artist and communication arts professor at Wilmington College concludes that “no single path defines a successful life.”
The author pairs individual written narratives with portrait photographs he took, one featuring his subject surrounded by objects they selected as representative of their lives, and a second zooming in on several key items from their personal mementos. Objects ranged from a toy firetruck and socket wrench to a ceramic cat, disassembled bicycle and empty prescription bottles. “After the portraits, I asked each person a series of questions, from what success looks like to them as an adult, to which milestones they have or have not reached, to how living in Columbus has shaped their experience,” said Hazelden, 37, noting that his subjects’ ages range within 10 years of his.
“We are taught that there is a natural sequence to adult life,” he added, noting there are “traditional milestones to reach”: going to college, committing to a career, getting married, buying a house and having children, in that order and on a schedule. “It is presented to us as the universal shape adulthood simply takes.”
PHOTO: Jeff Hazelden's portrait of Marco Brian Colmenares Aguilar, a Mexican immigrant who became a successful entrepreneur in Columbus.
Hazelden cited these cultural expectations as the “residue of a brief and unusual postwar abundance”: a few decades of cheap housing, single-earner wages and expanding credit, available unevenly even then. “We have mistaken that brief arrangement for the lasting natural order.” He admits that sequence did not fail some people — “it was constructed around a particular life and offered to everyone as if it were theirs.” For most of human history, and in most of the world, he said, “no single path has defined a successful life.”
He drew the analogy of being a child building a “fort” in the woods from branches, blankets and readily available, discarded furniture. “These worlds were made to my own specification,” he said. “Building a fort is the opposite of following an inherited sequence. You work with what you have, with the people around you, to no fixed plan.”
Hazelden’s six subjects shared what adulthood means to them, “people living it right now.” Their testimonials revealed that a life can be measured in many ways, and rarely by the timeline we are given. “Some reached the old milestones late, or out of order. Others set them aside entirely,” he added.
“The six adults documented here rarely centered their answers on the familiar markers of success. What mattered most was harder to measure: the work that felt worth doing, the people they chose to show up for and the difference between a life that looks right and one that feels right.”
PHOTO: Jeff Hazelden, the book's author
Hazelden resides in Columbus with my wife and two daughters. The assistant professor of communication arts at Wilmington College earned my Master of Fine Arts degree from The Ohio State University and a Bachelor of Science in photo illustration from Kent State University. His art practice uses the camera and digital media to create works of social critique.
The book, these are adults, is available free of charge from Hazelden at his office on campus at Robinson Communication Center and in Columbus at Palomino Coffee and, by the end of the month, at Bikes for All People and Wexner Center Store. Also, an online version can be viewed at: https://www.pageturnpro.com/Wilmington-College/113754-These-Are-Adults/sdefault.html
TOP PHOTO: Jeff Hazelden's portrait of Cat Mailloux features the sculptor/ceramicist with objects from her life representing her journey to adulthood.