The Sculpted World

Investigating Sculpture and Space in the World.

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Artist Statement 2.0 

I am building with parts of trees, like branches and leaves, which is a part of nature that I most connect with. Nature, and trees to be specific, is reflective of my own human experience and understanding the world around me. The reality of nature is reflective of the truth that I understand about the world. There is an essential search for truth. In creating with trees, I am working to understand the world through the natural lens, attempting to comprehend the things that I do not understand. Often times, there are experiences in life that I am unable to put to words and my creating is my attempt to understand these emotions, experiences and truths.

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How do you want people to remember your work?

I want people to remember my work as an honest attempt to understand the world and the human experience. I want people to think of it as weird- because if they think something is weird and something they haven’t seen before, then it is makes them ponder it more and it sticks in their mind. But I want to create things that make people ponder about their own experience rather than about the artwork itself. I’d rather people start to understand their own experience of the world than them remember that “one tree thing” they saw. 

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What other artists might your work be in conversation with?

An artist that my work may be in conversation with is Nils Udo. He’s a german artist that creates the understand how humans interact with nature. A piece of his specifically that I enjoy is Clemson Clay - Nest. His work uses clay, sticks, and ice in order to create a bird’s nest. He’s working to emulate that beauty and structure that birds have while creating their own nests that are their homes. His artwork asks humans to consider how we emulate nature in our own lives. He touches on the difference in how their homes are temporary and can be washed away while humans build for permanence. 

I think that my work in looking to be in conversation with Udo’s work as I’m exploring how people are experiencing that world and how the natural world influences our experience. How does the natural world reflect our own lives, and how do we reflect the natural world? How do we influence the world and what kind of power does it have over us? How does the human experience intersect with the natural world? These are questions that I consider while I am creating. 

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What specific artworks or artists have been meaningful to your art practice development?

Artists that have had a meaningful impact on my art practice are actually not known very well. They aren’t known as artists at all. Right now, it’s little children in my life that have a big impact on my thinking of my art practice. Children are so honest in what they say and think. They say things that make sense, that sometimes are things that as adults, we forget about or have strayed from our understanding of the world in the way kids understand it. Kids are honest in what they say and create. They aren’t hard on themselves when they create something- they create to create and to get their art out. There isn’t any pretentiousness or righteousness in their creating. They draw to draw, as a way to understand the world and to interpret it from their own mind. They write words, songs, poetry in order to get their words out. My cousins are some of my biggest inspirations right now. One of my cousins, Quentin, just so honestly writing and sharing his understanding of the world wrote that “love is win you like someone or someten so much” and I think that this is just so beautiful that this is his understanding of what love is. My other cousin, Emilia, just turned 5. She loves to draw pictures of her family and all of her extended family members because family is so important to her and her experience in the world. I love that she creates what is surrounding her and the things that are important to her. Looking at these children and how they understand the world and create in response to it is very inspiring and bring me an understanding of honesty and simplicity. I want to go back to when I was that old in order to understand the world in black and white without all the grey that people make. 

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Have you had to make sacrifices in order to live your life as an artist?

Oh yeah. I’ve been working in the art department at Jessup for the passed year and a half and it’s been really difficult. I haven’t had enough time to work on my own artwork, my classwork and do the work for the department altogether. But I also have to be able to pay for school. So I guess that a sacrifice I made was giving up my time in order to learn a certain side of the art world and managing art. Which I learned a lot in that job, but it also was super frustrating. And I learned halfway through working there that it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing. I had a longing in my soul to create, and I couldn’t find the time to. I haven’t had much social life etiher. Now, in order to start creating more, I’ve decided to step down from my position in the department in order to make that time for myself to be able to create. I’ll still be working, I just won’t be getting as many hours this next semester. So it’s going to be a bit of a struggle to be able to pay for school, but my time for my art practice is very important to me. 

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Have there been any distinct experiences that have steered your work in new or significant directions?

I mean, yes, of course. Coming to college has been a big thing that has influenced my artwork and steered me in new directions. I think that I am a completely different person now than i was before higher Ed. THinking back about what I believed about art in high school- ugh. I was so naive. I still am. But i know more now than I used to. And I am more comfortable in the things I believe about art than I used to believe. 

There have also been a lot of circumstances in my life where people have walked out- they’ve just left. One of my greatest fears is being abandoned, and when it keeps happening to you, you kind of just get used to it. Doesn’t make it any easier. I had a friend in high school just drop me because she wanted me to put her first over other people. I treat everyone with the same respect I’d want shown to me and I told her that- so she said “she didn’t need to be put second.” which is not what was happening. But she basically ghosted me for the rest of my senior year. The rest of that year I did a lot of questioning, but I also started creating of my own ideas rather than what was assigned to me in class. I started to figure out what kinds of things I liked to do instead of what I was told to do. 

I’ve been in two relationships that just haven’t worked out- and both of them played into my greatest fear. One of them broke it off because of reasons- he couldn’t even explain it to me. Another just completely ghosted me. The last thing I heard from him was to not worry. I haven’t heard anything from him in 3 months. They both just walked way and dropped me without explanation. After both of these, I think that I’ve started to create some of the best artworks that I’ve ever made. They may not be great to other people, but to me, the process of creating them has had great significance. Including “Imprinted World,” “Synecdoche,” and my most recent endeavor with my watercolor coordinate paintings. I’ve started doing things that build my art practice and build my presence as an artist. I’m creating my own success and it’s really freeing. 

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How important is art history in your work?

Looking at what I create and how I create it, I think that art history is important in a certain way to my art work. I think that what I create isn’t necessarily related to a lot of the art that is in the world, but there are significant steps that were taken in art history that got us to where we are today. 

Through time, art used to be a man’s profession. There is little known about a lot of female artists throughout the art world before the mid 1500s. One artist that has made an impact on my appreciation of art is Judith Leyster (1609-1660). She was a an artist of the Dutch Golden Age and excelled in portraits and still life paintings. Unfortunately, after her death, her work got covered up and credited to a man, Frans Hals. Not only does this frustrate me, but it covers up that women are just as capable as men are in the artistic realm. Art Historians have done lots of work to uncover the truth about her work and give her credit where it is deserved. So while her work is beautiful, her actual work has had small impact on me compared to who she was and what she did. Her legacy left behind and the people that have worked to defend her, and other stories of female artists is what has made an impact on me as an artist. 

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What skills have you developed in order to be successful as an artist?

One thing that I’m learning right now is to think of my class work for my art classes not as homework, but as part of my art practice. This has been hard for me and something I’ve struggled with since high school. Class has always been for a class. On my own has always been for on my own. I sometimes feel that my class style and my own style are two different artistic styles. I’ve been figuring it out recently.

I’ve also learned to have grace with myself. It’s okay for something to not work the way you want it to. There are going to be art works that you don’t think are successful or aren’t successful. And that’s okay.

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What do you think are the most interesting things happening in art right now?

I think that some of the most interesting things is what’s coming out of the pandemic world. I think it’s people’s responses for hard things- to turmoil, depression, fighting and stress. I think that a lot of artists are finding ways to respond and to be present in the ways they can be safe. When people go through hard circumstances, they look for hope- they cling to hope- they create something that gives them hope or communicates hope. I think that what is interesting right now is less about what is being created, and more about the problem solving that is happening. Artists are desperately trying to figure out ways to still be active in the field and how to connect with people but socially distant. I have read about different artists that have had to “go back to basics” in selling mainly online and through social media instead of creating murals and installations. Some artists are directing set up of an installation in another country from the US. It’s crazy to read about their stories and see how I am facing similar problems but what feels like on a closed, smaller scale in a university context.

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This glue gun. I have special attachment to this glue gun. It has been with me through so many years and so many projects. She’s the first glue gun I ever used to create things. It makes me sad that it died last week. :( It just stopped working- my guess is out of protest because of her old age. I had to shop around for a new one to continue working on my sculptures. I felt a little like I was betraying her. It was hard to let her go, but it needed to be done. I gave her a little ceremony thanking her for her service and the wonderful years we had together. Is that weird at all? It felt a little necessary to do it...

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I got more sticks for my sculpture. I went to my grandparents house during the break to get the sticks. They have huge trees and always have them in their lawn. They live on a piece of property, so it makes for easy pickings. This week, the trees started turning colors and they were so beautiful! I love how all of the colors, even when they are changing are still working together to make beautiful things. God really knew what he was doing when he created trees.

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Last weekend I got to have a little table out at a mini art and crafts fair at Bru Coffee House. It was the first time I’ve done anything like this. Ever. It was really fun, and I’ve made some connections and have another opportunity to have a table at a different location as well!! I started making these coordinate locations as wedding gifts because I went to a lot of weddings over the summer/ this fall and started making these. I find the coordinates of the wedding location and paint these watercolor paintings. I also do city locations too. Or any location that is special to people. It’s something new and a little different than what I’ve been focusing on in my art practice, but I really enjoy making these. I’m excited to see where they go. I’ve also started making little greeting cards with watercolor and ink flowers.

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It’s been a rough week- it didn’t start out great. I was super excited for critique and when it came to my turn, I wasn’t given the same respect I gave the other students. That’s one thing I expect from my art education- is to be given the same respect from my peers that I give them. And to top it off, someone moved my sculpture. The nice little curly circles from the yarn are no longer little circles. Someone pushed my sculpture over and ruined its presentation space. And to top it off (again), I know who it is. They are an artist. Not even a student here, but a professor. And they touched and moved my artwork. I moved it out of the studio specifically so there would be room inside. The space out there is mine just as much as it is anyone else’s, and to think that someone moved my sculpture because there wasn’t enough space is ridiculous. There is so much space outside in the warehouse. Literally, I was peeved. And I knew as soon as I walked in the door before I even inspected it that it was in a different spot. I am so frustrated that someone had the audacity to touch someone else’s art because they didn’t have enough space. There is so much f*cking space out there!

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Lotta lines now

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Studio update:

Working on the finishing touches of the tree. This is what she looks like now. Darkened and covered in branches. Today I am adding the yarn. We’ll see what happens and how it looks. But I am pretty excited to see it!

[thescupltedworld]

Artist statement

I am building with parts of nature that I most connect with. Nature, and trees to be specific, can give us the greatest understanding of our own experiences in life. There is an analogous element and experiential nature to trees. Our lives are so similar to nature; their reality reflects our truth. We are searching for the truth in life in this world. In creating with parts of trees, I am working to understand the world through the natural lens. My work attempts to comprehend the things of this world that we do not understand. Often times, we have experiences in our own lives that we are unable to put to words and my creating is my attempt to understand these emotions, experiences and truths.

[thescupltedworld]

I don’t know if I ever said this before, but the sculpture that I am working on is something that I had a dream about. Last semester, I started working on this right after I had a dream about building a tree. But the trouble that I had been having is interpreting it from my dream into reality. I knew there were colors, but I didn’t know how get what was in my mind into the world, into what I was creating. I have painted this sculpture three times now and it’s finally starting to look like what I saw in my dream. I attached sticks and twigs and I painted it a darker color rather than just rainbow colors. I think that it looks darker and has a darker/ eerie feeling to it, but I think that it’s more accurate about the season that I am in/ that we are in.

I’ve also started writing an artist statement. And I wasn’t quite sure if it was supposed to be in general about lots of my work or about this specific thing that I am working on right now. But based on what we talked about in class, it’s a little bit of both. Focusing on what this piece means now and how it is a part of what I am trying to get my work to say and what my work is exploring in the grand scheme of the world.