First Year Reflection

My mom always made a point to keep all of the work that I created as a child, both in school and out of school. I often find myself thinking about a watercolor I made around the age of 4 of a unicorn that she keeps at her work desk in Nebraska. I think this was the start of wanting to begin thinking of art seriously, as something I could make a career out of. This idea wasn’t too popular at first with my father, but I eventually got him to go with the idea and thus I enrolled at Parsons. I am currently in the Fine Art program with an emphasis in painting, and am minoring in Environmental Studies. My interests in both painting/art making and politics have so far driven me to create works that I hope will impact the viewers. I have so far benefited from living in New York City and was able to have a full reset on my inspirations after coming from Omaha, Nebraska. I come from a family full of only support and this has impacted me greatly with experiences I’ve had thus far and experiences to come in the future.

My first semester at Parsons introduced me to art making that I hadn’t previously experimented with, which was 3D media. Before Space & Materiality, I focused strictly on 2D painting and drawing, and I quickly found that I enjoy working in wire making. This experience with 3D media pushed me to create pieces that combined multiple medias, whether it be creating a ring box with acrylic and wire, a wire hand and wood, or a painting that I took a risk and cut open a canvas that I had already spent hours creating. My first year at Parsons pushed me to face my fears and go to a further extent than I normally would have with my pieces before Parsons. My writing and research skills have also developed as I am able to make deeper connections through my pieces, digging into the connections between art education and the great depression, and then going further to connect it to an artist’s life. Research for my essays also forced me to do more research for my art pieces. First semester Space & Materiality I had researched masks in order to create a paper maché raven mask. I spent a week researching and developing a board of my visuals and research to present before creating my mask, and it included a blueprint of how the mask would turn out. I learned from this piece that alterations can be made and not to get down on myself if I must simplify something to have it be completed on time. My time management has also drastically improved as I face stricter deadlines at Parsons.

The first project at Parsons that I’m proud of was the wire hand I created in Space & Materiality first semester. I spent nearly four weeks on the hand, and found myself using small pieces of wire and connecting them so the bends of the hand resembled that of a real hand. The hand wore a ring almost as though it was a jewelry holder, and I wanted the fragile sculpture to show femininity. The piece consisted of two types of wire, a 24 gauge copper wire that was easy to bend but sturdy enough to stand on its own, and a 16 gauge steel wire that I used for finer detailing and tightly winding the larger pieces of wire together. This piece was my first true experience with working with 3D materials, and I carried on using wire throughout the rest of my Space & Materiality pieces, which included an acrylic ring box bound with wire, and a paper maché mask with the structure made of wire.

A piece that I found myself taking a big risk with was a painting I created in my Studio 2: Visual Culture class. The piece, entitled “Who Shot Alice Neel?” is a recreation of Alice Neel’s portrait of Andy Warhol, which I found in my research being described as the “most intimate portrait of Andy Warhol.” The piece features Warhol with the scars from his gun wounds, but in my piece I had sliced the canvas at the stitches, and attached extra pieces of canvas to the back of the piece to feature exposed bullet wounds. This piece was meant to be a ‘trap’ for Alice Neel, and in my piece I wanted Neel to see the piece and be trapped in fear from the raw image of Warhol.  Another aspect of the trap could also include Neel being angered from the piece being based so closely off of her own, with such large alterations.

Further on in my time at Parsons and beyond, I’d like to create art that raises more questions about politics. Both my final project for my Studio 2: Visual Culture piece and my final essay for Seminar 2: Visual Culture both relate to caricature and how it has impacted the Trump Administration. As Donald Trump will be president for the rest of my time at Parsons, given he isn’t impeached before, I hope to create pieces that show his corrupt presidency, and his negative impact on healthcare, education, science, the environmental protection agency, and countless more government funded programs. I hope to develop my painting skills during my time here so I can be more confident in using oil paint and not just acrylic as I am most comfortable with now. I plan on incorporating multi-media into my paintings, and perhaps get into traditional sculpture down the road. Parsons has given me a great experience thus far and I have many more that are open to me as a student at this university.

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