My artistic world, at this point, is sort of foggy. I have a lot of interests to explore and relatively little experience in any of them. Since I started to become aware of myself as an artist in middle school, I have gone through several drastic changes in medium, aesthetic and philosophy, but I have never doubted my identity as an Artist, in a soul kinda way.
During my four years at a large public high school (a bit of a shock after my tiny K-8 charter school) I allowed myself one visual art class per year, so that I could focus my energies on doing well in school and constructing a sham resume for colleges. I consider this a period of artistic hibernation, as I was constantly putting off my art education until college, when I would finally be able to breathe and focus on my creativity. I did do some stuff in high school, though!
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| A still life in colored pencil, completed for my Advanced Portfolio class senior year |
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| Senior year, I did a project on bookbinding- I ended up with about 10 fully bound books of all kinds, including this little one. |
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| At some point I got a tablet and started fooling around with photoshop, sometimes to hilarious ends. |
Now that I'm finally allowed to really study art, I'm starting to realize the impact of my shallow education- I'm interested in everything and I haven't tried anything. So I'm exploring. However, cartoons– especially funny ones– and good stories have been inspiring me for as long as I can remember. This has led up to my current interest in comics and graphic novels, which is turning in the direction of developing longer stories and more complex worlds.
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| Page 1 of Burbs Aeterna, the 4-page comic I made with my brother for his school's comics publication in 2014. |
While I know I want to make art, I've never been interested in the life of a traditional gallery-bound artist. Instead, I can see myself becoming a sort of tradesperson. Freelance illustration, webcomics, and self-employed artists are gaining new power and recognition in the internet era, and using the web as a tool for exhibiting and distributing art in an informal, intimate setting has already changed the way my generation sees art and artists. I intend to capitalize on this trend in true American fashion.
You have a lot of variety in your work thus far, and I think that's great. I think probably all of us are still at a point where we are exploring different mediums; I don't think it's bad that you're a sort of jack-of-all-trades artist at this point. I really like your little book! I'd like to see more of them if you can find any; Did you write in any of them or use any of them beyond the binding process?
ReplyDeleteThis is so cool! I was only familiar with your comics, but it's cool seeing a lot of your other stuff too. Did you go to an arts magnet high school? I was wondering because of the still life from your senior art portfolio class. I want one of your books! Cool!
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