Most Disturbing ATC Ever

In an ATC art box I just saw the most disturbing content ATC ever. I am very bothered by this image. It literally is haunting me.

The background card was lovely and I believe was alcohol inks, in pretty pink colors with a tinge of light yellow. There was an accent of a handmade paper that was light yellow. Lovely, so far.

The center and main image was a photograph. It was an image of a girl who was either four or five years old. She was wearing a pretty pink dress that looked like a little prom gown or perhaps it was a little girls beauty pagent gown, which complimented the color of the background paper well.

She was dressed in costume, for Halloween, one can only assume.

Her face had white makeup on it and black around the eyes such to look like whe was a member of the living dead. She was making a gruesome face bearing her teeth like she was a mean possed person or something like that. Her face also had makeup like blood streaked on it.

In her upraised arm was a chef knife at least 12 inches long which was colored to look like dripping blood was all over it. Her pink dress was spattered with blood as if she had just murdered someone.

I hate to be judgemental but I cannot for the life of me fathom a parent dressing a girl of age four or five to look like a murderer. It was the creepiest image that I have ever seen.

I also would dare to say that this crosses the line between what is art and what is not art. My issue with this is not whether this is a piece of art but that the imate in it and what the parent chose to dress a young girl as is very disturbing to me.

At that moment I was glad that I did not have my young children looking at the art box with me. I used to have them look over the ATCs with me when they arrived.

So the question is if you saw an ATC of content that really distrubed you would you keep it in circulation or would you remove it and destroy it?

(I swear I won't be able to get that image out of my mind now that I've seen it!)

ON a related note...
The last art box I had had a photo of two teenaged girls dressed in gothic clothing and makeup who were french kissing. That is another image that I'd not want my very young children to see. We have not yet discusses the gay and lesbian lifestyle and I didn't think that ATCs would be the door to open that topic for discussion.

The question of what is offensive to some in the 'artist trading cards' art world is a controversial one. Some online groups have rules about what can be traded on the list such as PG content only, no nudity or some other rules. I am not sure if the two ATCs that I didn't like that I discussed actually would break any of those rules.

It is something to think about.

What do you think?

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