clara's studio

Saturday, April 14, 2018

Build Your Own Structure

Sketching/ journaling has always been an outlet I have used, however, a couple years ago I became disciplined in my journaling practice. I started with the idea of not liking to separate the different "subjects" of what I was learning from my own life, schedule, personal thoughts, goals, and prayers, etc. During this time I was in the process of developing my concept and body of artwork, the "rough draft" was constant intentional journaling which I like to refer to as brain vomiting. I tried a couple things to figure out my own rhythm of journaling. One was waking up every morning and before I left for the day I had to fill an entire page with words. They didn't have to make any sense or have a goal, just enough thoughts to fill a page, but that over time they developed into comfortability with the process of a stream of consciousness documenting and amounted to tangible metaphors or plans or just life statements of identity or observation.

The success of this was really obvious in the grades of my general subject classes (as well as my overall excitement and passion for life and art). I have always doodled in class but by the combining of my day planner, 'diary', sketchbook and class notebooks all in one NON LINED journal it amounted to the most beautiful overlapping of what I was learning into application of my habits and artwork and general intentions of everything. I began drawing doodles that I would fill in with notes, making the notes a part of the "piece" I would begin drawing at the beginning of a class. This was a breakthrough to me retaining the information of the class lecture and applying it to not only the projects for that class but carrying over into all of the classes, my BFA concept, and general interests. #purpose of going to college... This also gave me a lot of identity confidence and security and comfort with myself. It taught me how to love spending time with myself anywhere anytime if I had a journal and some preferred pens. The idea is to create your own structure of remembering important things and creating new ideas and falling in love with all the potential of your beautiful unique brain and benefit from its awesome and creative potential.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Studio Blogging for Direction

I learned around mid-college that I cant just like what I paint, I have to love the process to have the piece hold meaning. I want to collect all the energy of the life that is surrounding me during periods of my life and turn my paintings into time capsules reflecting these "moments".

(The beginning of my relationship with oil paint starts with the envy I felt for those in the painting studio while I was stuck behind a computer as a graphic design major. I was not fulfilled by the medium of a mouse and felt disconnected from the computer programs that I now wish I knew. This directed me to enroll in Painting 1 my second semester, taught by Dr. Halide Salam. My college career was seriously rerouted about 2 weeks into our first project when Salam approached me on one of her rounds of our studio time and asked me directly, "what is your major?" to which I responded, "Graphic Design". To this, She responded with, "No. You are a painting major." The confidence in her response was all the direction I needed to march myself down to the art departments advisor Donna and tell her I would be pursuing a BFA in oil painting. This commitment to an unknown goal based purely on feeling shaped my perspective on the process to which I live my life. )

I want to continue to keep relearning the power of a curated process on a macro and micro scale forever. The more you commit faith into action the most unique beauty comes into existence #SpiritAnd Matter ;) . You can cherish those moments but don't get stuck once they become memories. Bravely face the transition to the next struggle or confusion and a greater "moment" will come.

I pray for my actions and influence. I pray to tunnel vision with little laziness into the direction I have faith in. I pray for those going through a struggle and for all to find a source of comfort. I pray for my family and my relationships with loved ones. I pray they know how much I love, adore, and cherish them and how they are a part of all of my happiness. I pray to feel the strengths of our families through the constant transitions of life.

Friday, October 16, 2015

Spirit and Matter

For my senior body of work, I incorporate the emotional and spiritual qualities you experience within nature combined with the tangible material elements of nature to create abstracted compositions. I identify with Mondrian’s theory of spirit and matter that has directed me to develop a method of structuring horizontal and vertical bands of color to express the harmony I feel while immersed in the outdoors. Not just the physical beauty of nature but also its all-consuming spirit overwhelms me. Within my abstracted compositions I represent spirit with the application of vertical line, and horizontal line representing matter. By spirit, I mean the energy and emotion one feels from different elements in nature. By matter, I mean the tangible elements within nature. In my paintings, I think of paint as an ingredient to express the spiritual qualities of nature's spirit. It can be applied densely or be thinned to the point of becoming ephemeral. Matter is the collage paper that is tangible and that grounds the composition. The textural print of the collage paper adds to the grounding of forms in the composition and represents the environment. I express the forces of nature through a color palette that ranges in cool colors, whereas a range of earth tones represents matter. The paint quality varies from transparent to heavy areas to accentuate this concept. I want my viewer to be visually directed through the painting using the lines and colors as tools to access a calming and methodical state of mind.