Date of Submission

Fall 2023

Academic Program

Studio Arts

Project Advisor 1

Nayland Blake

Abstract/Artist's Statement

okay i’m perfect

I make art as a way to externalize my anger in a way that won’t hurt anyone. I’ve been making art about my anxieties, my exhaustion, my fear. Some of my drawings scare me to look at, and to think of other people looking at. So then I make other things to protect myself from them, and from you.

Most of the time when I get into my studio, I don’t know what to do. I draw myself, and I make rectangles from fabric and I stuff them. The repetition of drawing and sewing grounds me until I get an idea I am excited about.

I get an idea and I make it, I become obsessed with making it. I am like this for a few days, manically making and obsessing – I take pictures of what I’m doing on my iphone and I look at them when I’m away from the studio. Eventually I run out of passion and energy for the idea. Many times it doesn’t turn out how I envisioned it. My obsession wears off, and I’m left chasing that feeling.

A big part of my process is bringing back things I threw away; the things I cast to the side become the groundwork for the things I love. New paintings happen on top of old paintings, drawings turn into stuffing for soft sculpture, I change a word and give a piece new meaning.

I am excited by how art can talk to itself in this way, over time, as well as physically in space. I’ve been thinking about moving from 2D work into 3D work as a continuum. I am using all of the materials from my studio as a way to draw in the space, the same way I would use pencil to paper. This transition is more of a psychological battle than anything else. I have to trust myself in order to be able to believe I could have control over four walls the same way I do over the four corners of a piece of paper. In both form and content, I am creating a proof: if I can do it inside, I can do it outside.

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