As any person would first look at my art, they may pass it by without another thought. However, if you look closer you will be able to see details that uncovers the surface. Details about my emotions, my thoughts, all hidden in plain sight. For me, I like to make art that always resembles me in some way. For this piece, it would be obvious given that it’s a self portrait. However, even in some of my other art pieces, I show subtle patterns that would resemble a piece of myself. If given only one word for it, I would say my biggest inspiration is adventure. New places, new sights and colors to see, and new thoughts to imagine. I think taking time away from your usual routine does wonders for the wellness of a person's mind and body. When I am making any art piece, whether it be a collage of myself or a painting of any object, I am taken away to a different place. Creating art just gives me a different state of peace. In a sense, it brings me to my own mental adventure. In my identity project, you will first just see a simple picture. A girl with brown hair and brown eyes, with a red shirt and headpiece, surrounded by colors of yellow, orange, and brown. This is in fact completely right, but if you choose to see more, if you choose to think deeply into others you will see that my background is filled with places of nature and life. There are several pictures that consist of rivers, forests, lakes, flowers, and sunrises. I chose to create a background full of nature and life because I want to be the person who was known for living. In the pictures I chose to depict nature and life, you will see more yellow than anything else. Very simply, I chose the color yellow so it would stick out to the audience's eyes. I wanted to bring them a state of peace and joy like it did me. The last insight I have to represent myself is the color of my clothes. In my original reference picture, the color of my shirt was brown. However, instead of having brown, I decided to create it red. The color red has lots of different meanings, but to me it gives off a strong sense of power and adventure. It is the color of the royals, the color for love, for energy, independence, and desire. I like to believe these traits describe parts of me in different ways. So if you’re a person who swiftly passes by and sees the colors of my art, I hope you will be given a sense of peace, joy, and adventure. If you are, however, looking deeply, I hope you will be able to see my hidden aspirations in life, and that you will be able to look within yourself and see your own desires from your own actions and mind.
The Real Anatomy of Technology
Have you ever passed by a cellphone tower and imagined it to be a giant arm ripping out of the Earth? Have you ever seen a computer and imagined it to be an enormous brain since it is all knowing? These thoughts have always crossed my mind as I observe technology on a daily basis. Only now, I finally decided to take out my thoughts and form it amazingly on paper with simply a few pencils. I have always liked art whether it be from sculpting with mud to painting with the fanciest of brushes. I would say my motivation for this piece was to achieve an identical picture to the one in my mind. Almost as if I dissected my own brain and found a picture inside just waiting to be on display. Some of the greatest artists do this and they don’t settle until they achieve this goal. Others, however, settle with their artwork even though it is a stroke away from being extraordinary. I like to think of myself as a person who would never settle until it looks exactly the way I want it to. In this project, I did just that. I took the image revolving around in my brain and planted it on paper for the eyes of the world to see. However, before I had this image in my head, I had to do research to get there. I first started by asking myself what kind of technology influences me? I pondered this for a moment, and realized I didn’t feel inspired by the technology most often used in my life like cellphones, laptops, or game consoles. Instead, I asked someone who was a witness of some of the first technology to come out to the public eye. I asked the same question, he told me about the first editions of programming, wall phones, and televisions. I felt a stronger connection to the older technologies, but I still felt like I should have been inspired by the technology in my age. Thus, I went down the middle of these two eras and suddenly had an idea of what I wanted to draw. A speaker box; the almost invisible holes in the machine resembling the pores of skin, the round drum giving off noise and vibrations as a mouth screaming it out, the volume knob as an eye bleeding out as it is twisted repeatedly to let out louder or more hushed screams, lastly, the wiring of the speaker right above it all as a brain spilling out as the vibrations of the screams would have cracked its skull right open. I was ecstatic to have found the perfect idea all shaped together just waiting to be pieced for everyone to see. I started by making a rough draft of my splendid, suffering speaker box. After doing so, I started making the real thing with slow, more careful movements. After putting layers upon layers of pencil and blending until my speaker was as vibrant as could be I was finally done. The image was as complete as if someone had pulled it right out of my head. The silent suffering of my speaker shown by it being lively but immoble, the only movements being the slow blood flow tearing from its eye, the silent and painful expression, unchangeable.
The Value of Words
Words are a very powerful tool when a person knows how to use them. Loving and equally harmful, words make us who we are. A person's voice, their character, is shown through the tongues they speak. Sometimes, as an artist, I am unbelievably stuck. Many ideas pop into my head, but none seem worthy enough to actually be put into action. For days and days I just sit and procrastinate while my pencils, brushes, papers, and canvases wait patiently to be transformed into something beautiful. In this project, “The Value of Words,” I couldn’t think of a thing to put on paper. I struggled for an entire week thinking of what I could possibly draw that would come to be something meaningful. I was at an all new low of being uninspired. However, I took a few steps back and organized my thoughts in what I already knew. A few weeks prior, I was given questions on how the meaning of words were and I pondered on those for a while. It reminded me of how every person perceives words and the meanings behind them differently. As I went back through my questions and answers, I remembered how I wrote of this and how words are most meaningful through ones emotions. I suddenly had the idea to illustrate how people can overcome those who hurt them by moving on and healing. To show this, I drew what people could see as an arm crushing a heart, the heart being whoever is viewing it and the arm as the person or thing that is the burden on the viewers shoulders. I wanted people to be able to look at this piece and put themselves in it and to relate to it. Too often in this time, people keep their burdens with them, whatever it may be. People like to hold onto their resentment and they want people to pity them for years and years. However, doing this will hold them back from the riches of life. Therefore, in my piece, the heart is being crushed and the “blood” of the pain and tears and resentment and all other awful things is forming in the shape of a new heart, one that is whole and together. Inside the heart is a poem, “This is me.” This short poem comes up with owning yourself once more and taking control of your life again. Forgetting the resentment, forgetting the burdens, and living your life because you are you and nobody can say any different. It is astonishing how people forget that we have the power to control who we are and who we want to be. With a little reminder, I hope, people will soon realize the power and happiness they will find after beginning to trust themselves a little more than they used to.
Art Awareness
All around us there is sadness. We would not be human if we didn’t feel sad from time to time. However, feeling sad all the time is the most unbearing torture a person can go through. In our Art Awareness project, I wanted to take a look at the sad state people enter when having to deal with constant bullying. Many young artists will think of something to create directly only when they think about creating things. Like as a person is hungry, they eat. When some artists wish to make something, they find an idea for it. I myself usually find that I see beautiful, simple things happen everyday. I long to draw them, to express them, or to discover the feelings behind them. In this project, I was able to finally put one of my longings to rest. Nowadays, observing people is both interesting and draining. I see so many people with tired faces, heads down, and voices low. In my mind I would always tell them to perk up, but their feelings are contagious and many times I find myself keeping quiet and not wishing to get involved. So, with staying quiet, I created a piece to hopefully have some people relate their feelings to and to realize that they’re never alone. My piece includes a small girl crouching with her hands on her head. The kind of pose a person would be in when it feels like there’s nothing more they can do. The world is above her, with a cord dangling from under it. At the end of it, a plug is found with blood dripping and splashed all around. The plug that was connected to the world had been ripped out of the girls back, taking her heart out with it as well. Surrounding above her, there are words of what she has heard about herself, the words that caused her to be so drained. Finally, at the bottom of the page there are the piercing words, “No One Likes You.” The phrase that keeps her knowing she is forever alone and disconnected from the rest of the world. In hopes that all people will view this piece with sad eyes, and will rethink their word choices before talking to another human being; and in hopes that people who’re feeling this way will realize that other people are feeling it as well, and that they are never alone.