Question 1: What drew you towards art?
Even when I was little, art was my favorite subject. I never thought I was good at it, but I loved doing it. I have these small snip-its of memory from elementary school art class. The teacher had this huge cart, that she would take from classroom to classroom. Hearing it come down the hallway was always a source of excitement. I also remember making a little clay monster and the class placing their projects along the AC unit to help them dry.
What truly drove me towards art, though, is the pushback I got from my mom. At some point, art was like a forbidden love. After I still had an interest in art after middle school, my mom started to get concerned. She didn’t want me to be an artist. She wanted — and still does want— me to be an engineer. I’m not really sure she even knows what that means; she just knows they make a lot of money.
Question 2: Have you had any other pushbacks on the road the becoming an artist?
Oh, yeah! During my sophomore year of high school, I applied for GSA (Governor’s School of the Arts). It was this amazing opportunity to get to connect with artists my age around the state of Kentucky. Attending GSA also would have given me a full-tuition scholarship to nearly any college in Kentucky. When I didn’t get accepted, I was ready to give up on art — never pick up another drawing pencil or paint brush again. Even though it hurt tremendously at the time to get rejected, looking back, the art I submitted was complete trash. Here’s an example of work I did:
Honestly, I am thankful for the learning experience GSA taught me even though I did not attend.
Question 3: What made you get back in the saddle after you weren’t accepted into GSA?
I was, more or less, forced into creating art again. I had the choice of taking an art elective or an Arts and Humanities lecture class my senior year of high school. I needed one or the other to graduate. So, I opted not to take the course I had been avoiding my entire high school career and go with the senior art class my school offered. I’m really grateful that I was forced into because that’s the year my art really started to take off and become worthwhile. This is some work I made that year:
I obviously had no idea how togo about documenting my work in a professional manner, but it’s all just a learning curve.
Question 4: How has your art progressed?
The biggest difference I can see is my art has meaning now. It isn’t just about making images that are nice to look at anymore. I’m creating work that I truly care about because it involves the issues that I face daily. Now, my art actually has something to say.
Question 5: How has college affected your artwork?
Technically. College was the perfect place for me to hone my skills and sharpen my technical craft. I feel like the professors at NKU have taught me things that I wouldn’t had been able to acknowledge without them. I never would have know that I was underexposing nearly all of my photo work or that sometimes I need to be rushed in order to finish a painting in less than a month. All of my instructors have given me a swift kick in the ass that I didn’t know I needed. I have also largely been encouraged to explore the topics that I want to make work about — by peers and professors.
Question 6: How do you balance being a full-time college student with being an artist?
Granted that me being a student is centered around the art I am making, it isn’t that difficult. However, making work outside of the classroom is a reoccurring struggle. It has been quite a while since I have made any personal work. When I make my work, I put my all into it — whether it has been assigned to me or not. I do my best not to feel like I have to create an overflow of production. I don’t want to emotionally drain myself.
Question 7: If you haven’t made work outside of the classroom for a bit, what drives you to create art?
I care too much about feelings and the human experience to ever stop creating. I think that it’s super important to for people to share their reality. I am always interested in what others have to say. So the way I figure it, someone out there is probably interested in what I have to say too. There is always going to be emotional turmoil to explore. And if by some miracle there isn’t, then, there’s still things to care about.
Question 8: What is your art about?
In a word: relationships. The work I make focuses on the interactions between people, how we affect the places we live, and how we care for ourselves.
Question 9: How do you start making work?
First, I think about what is causing me the most pain. For a good while, that was my dad. There was a lot that I thought I had coped with that I hadn’t. That’s why Unlearning is my biggest project yet. Exploring those emotions within myself, led to me wanting to share that mental discomfort. I know daddy issues can be the punch line of a lot of jokes —hell, I make a lot of them — but sometimes it’s important to take seriously and figure out the root of it.
After I figure out what I want to make work about, I start coming up with concepts for how to get my message across. This is going to sound super pretentious, but there isn’t any one thing that I love to photograph. I’d rather photograph ideas than things. Once I have that mapped out, I start making the work.
Question 10: Do you think your art is making an impact?
At the very least, I know it has an impact on myself. My art has made me share some of my life experiences in ways that are not comfortable, but necessary. Something I think about a lot actually is that Unlearning has made someone cry before. I think that’s the biggest and most genuine compliment I have ever received as an artist. So, I know that project has meaning beyond myself.