LIFE OVERFLOWING
The Journals of
Dan Eldon
by Rick Laney
Dan Eldon
was the poster-boy for living life to its fullest. Born in England
and raised in Africa, he was on a mission to experience everything
the world had to offer. Even at an early age, Eldon’s art journals
mirrored his own overflowing life – bursting at the seams with
photos, drawings, and everyday items that held special meaning.
“Dan’s
journals would end up weighing five or six pounds,” said Kathy
Eldon, Dan’s mother. “There would be feathers sticking
out of them and things hanging out of the sides. One of them was actually
held together with a leather belt because he had so much packed in
there.”
The seventeen
journals Eldon left behind offer a snapshot of a life lived to its
fullest. Through collages of ticket stubs, paintings, matchbook covers,
photographs, newspaper articles, spaghetti boxes and anything else
that caught the artist’s eye, viewers get a moving glimpse into
a life lived at 500 miles-per-hour.
When it
came to understanding the people of Africa, Eldon was on a quest.
He spent countless days and nights living with the Masai Tribe and
became close friends with many villagers. His genuine interest in
the people and their culture was apparent in his evolving journals.
By high school, Eldon’s simple scrapbooks developed into true
works of art. His growing photography and design talents were also
becoming obvious.
At nineteen,
Eldon created a mission statement for himself: “Safari as a
Way of Life.” It summarized his thirst for adventure, desire
to explore, and his fascination with beauty and danger. While most
students would be content spending the weekend camping with friends,
Eldon wanted his “safaris” to be more meaningful. He once
raised and delivered $20,000 to help refugees in Mwanza build wells
for drinking water.
“Dan
thought everyone should live a full life, not just for themselves,
but for others too,” Kathy Eldon explained. “He had a
way of making altruism fun. Everyone wanted to be a part of the things
Dan did.”
Following
a semester at college in California and an internship at Madamemoiselle
magazine in New York, Eldon returned to Africa unsure of what the
future would hold. It didn’t take long before Reuters –
the world’s largest international multimedia news agency –
hired Eldon as a photojournalist. At the time, he was the youngest
photographer Reuters ever hired.
Although
Somalia was his first real assignment, Eldon’s photographs appeared
in countless magazines and newspapers around the world, including
TIME and Newsweek. The gamble taken by the editors at Reuters with
the young photographer paid off, and Reuters planned to move him to
new assignments.
On July
12, 1993, the day Eldon was scheduled to leave Somalia, U.S. helicopters
bombed a house in Mogadishu where a warlord was thought to be hiding.
Eldon grabbed his camera and raced to the scene with other members
of the press. When they arrived at the bombed-out home, the journalists
found a large group of people piling dead bodies of men, women, and
children into the backs of pickup trucks. The warlord was not in the
home at the time of the bombing. Outraged, the crowd quickly turned
its hostility toward the foreign journalists.
When
the violence was over, Eldon and three other journalists were dead.
In a bitterly ironic turn of events, while trying to draw international
attention to the pain and suffering in Somalia, he lost his life at
the hands of the people he spent years trying to help. Eldon was 22
years old.
Weeks
later, a large nylon bag arrived at the Eldon home in Nairobi. Dan’s
sister Amy went through the contents, finding many of Dan’s
personal belongings and, at the bottom, an unfinished journal. Unlike
the other journals he created, this last one did not seem complete.
Whereas most of his journals had vivid collages and endless variations
of color and texture, the last book was mostly comprised of single,
haunting photographs.
“That
final book didn’t have all of the drawings and sketches that
most of his journals had,” Kathy Eldon said. “There were
simply photos – but the photos were so stark and powerful, they
stood alone. Nothing more was needed.”
More
than a decade after his death, Dan Eldon still provides inspiration
to thousands of people. In recent years, he has been the subject of
a book, a television documentary and his journals were published in
a book titled Dan Eldon: The Journey is the Destination by Chronicle
Books. A major motion picture about his life is now in the works.
“You
have to wonder if Dan didn’t somehow know that his time here
would be short,” said Kathy Eldon. “He did so much living
in so little time.”
Eldon’s
philosophy of living an overflowing life strikes a chord with many
people who desire a full and meaningful existence. Fortunately, he
lives on through the wonderful pages he left behind.
Rick Laney
is a freelance writer who lives with his wife and three children in
Knoxville, TN. His writing has appeared in newspapers and a variety
of magazines since the late 1980s.
To honor
the legacy of Dan Eldon, Kathy and Amy Eldon founded the Creative
Visions Foundation in 1998. To learn about the foundation, visit www.creativevisions.org.
The book containing Dan’s journals, The Journey is the Destination,
is available for purchase at www.stampington.com.
