Interview by Audrey Xu, SFWA MYEEP Intern
I noticed your pieces/exhibition about ALS/Lou Gehrig’s. What was your inspiration for focusing on this disease in particular?
It’s two reasons. One is that in 2020, my sister was diagnosed with ALS. The news hit us hard, and it was COVID, so our family couldn’t physically be together. I am the only one in my family that lives far away, everybody else is in Minnesota, so they can drive to see each other and spend time with one another. It’s a very different experience having a sister with a terminal illness that I couldn’t see every day. I wanted to do something that would honor her as she worked through her diagnosis. It happened to be at a time when I was considering things that I had not yet done as an artist, and one of them was curating a show. I thought I could lean into my talents as an artist and both honor my sister and curate an exhibition, something I hadn’t done yet. So, I developed Hope Lives: Art for ALS, which is a yearly exhibition that I do. Every year, it’s about fundraising for ALS organizations, educating the public, celebrating the art, and hopefully giving hope to the viewer.
What motivates you to create art?
Well, it’s in me! I knew what I wanted to be when I was three. The minute I could hold a pencil in my hand, I haven’t stopped since. Just the act of creating is what fulfills me. Different things over the years have inspired me and inspired different bodies of work, but my motivation to create is that I must. It’s depressing when I can’t make art.
Have you ever had “Artist’s Block”? If so, what actions do you take to get over it?
In my twenties, my studio was not in my home, so whenever I went to my studio, I always put a lot of pressure on myself to be able to create in that moment to either build a body of work or finish a certain number of pieces in a day. Creativity isn’t like that, unfortunately. Sometimes you just have a bad day in the studio and you have to call it quits, but I was young and didn’t know that. So, even in those moments when you’re having a bad day and things aren’t coming together, I think stepping away is important, maybe just for an hour or even a week. Then you can come back to it. As long as you’ve still got that drive to create, you can break through whatever’s making you have a bad day, week, or year.
How has your style evolved throughout your journey in making art?
I come from a drawing background and started out drawing in college. I drew nudes, and all of my drawings of nudes informed the other work that I did, which ended up being sculpture. My work started out as pretty realistic but as time passed, it became more abstracted. I would paint people seated, but there would be an element within the work itself that gave it an action, even if the person or position was not set in motion. The lines would be smeared in a way that would give the subject movement. That informed the artwork in my twenties. From drawing, I went to printmaking. My school wasn’t equipped for printmaking, so I researched it and did it anyway. I took my love of printmaking into young adulthood, and finally took a class on oil-based printmaking. I wanted to switch things up, but because I had been creating realistic imagery, abstract was difficult. In the class that I took—I was the only one not from a painting background, and I was doing total abstract—I was the worst printer in the class, but it taught me so much! I started renting studio time from the instructor, and the rest I discovered through self-exploration. Abstract imagery just took hold and wouldn’t let go. I feel like I can express myself best through my abstractions.