EXSCRIBO

STATEMENT OF NOW

I am my conscious and subconscious mind all at once. I am a subjective being. The artist I am today is a result of my experiences had, mistakes made, and lessons learned through time. My current work is haunted by shadows of my former self, each new piece just an extension of the last. So who am I as an artist/designer? I am a combination of who I am trying to be and who I inherently have always been. In the past year I let the latter gain control.

The work I’ve made at MIAD has both surprised me and helped me realize what kind of artist I actually am and what role my art plays in my life. My art is my instinct, so in many ways I am just a medium. I have seen a division in my work between these two sides of myself, the one that demands control and the one that seizes to acknowledge it. When I design I find a familiar sense of self. I see the organized, meticulous, analytical side of me that I always knew was there. When I experiment with new media, I embrace the visceral side that acts on impulse and doesn’t think about the final result. I am simultaneously who I always knew I would be and who I never thought I was.

I think my audience consists mainly of my peers, professors, and other people who know me and know my work. The obvious way of communicating with this audience is by making artwork that fits the criteria for the day, the week, or the semester. What is my professor looking for? What do my classmates like? What will the school get excited about? What’s most important to me, though, is what I think about my work. Yes, I like to please the rest of my audience, but I’ll never call a piece finished unless I’m happy with it first (at least remotely). I ask myself, what am I saying with a piece, and what is working or not working about it? I think this may be why we as artists enjoying sketchbooks so much, we fill them with art that makes perfect sense to us and stop caring about the critics.

My schoolwork is heavily influenced by what my audience has to say but also what surrounds me. This beautiful city and the experience of moving here have provided endless sources of inspiration. Not to mention how being engulfed in a community here at MIAD where everyone is constantly making and being inspired and making and being inspired over and over again is extremely motivating. But the fact remains, my art is an extension of myself, and as I learn and grow as an artist I hope to stay true to who I am, whatever that may mean.