What kinds of learning environments are/have been most exciting for you?

I have noticed that the best learning environments for me were ones where I have been able to communicate with my peers and collaborate. My first job was at a sandwich shop and i really enjoyed the fast pace and being able to learn and teach at the same time.

List five questions you want to fuel your work.

Where are you going/what’s next?

How do you think your experiences are perceived by people who haven’t witnessed them?

What is another way you can say what you have been trying to express?

Who are you to yourself and how is that different to who you are to other people?

What provokes the deep whimsical emotions like longing, sorrow, pure joy and feelings of nostalgia? How can all those feelings be felt at once?

If you were to conceive one art assignment/prompt for yourself what would that be?

I feel like art is often about self perception and our own points of view on the world, and sometimes I feel like my art is too specific to me and in that way somewhat selfish Although I don’t believe that any art can be selfish because exploring yourself and your own experiences is necessary to be able to make art about things beyond yourself.

Does your lack of sleep make you feel stronger or weaker?

So much stronger! Especially when i work on art and I am being creative and making things all night and get an hour and a half of sleep and then wake up feeling weirdly refreshed cause I am so excited to wake back up in an art world!

What is the power in your life that you most want to transform or overthrow and why?

Guilt and worry. I am constantly apologizing and worrying about how others may feel and while I do want to hold onto some of my compassion in that I feel like it holds me back in a lot of ways and stops me from getting what I need. I start to believe that people are less ok than they are. I tried making art about it, I made this film called “It’s Just There” about how I’m constantly wondering if each of the people in my family are ok on their own. It was about seeing them in one moment, in one day, during one walk through the woods near my old house (where my dad still lives). But even though its just about that one day, to me it holds all the memories I’ve ever had with them all together. Maybe that’s because it was in the place I called home for the longest time with people who I hadn’t been with all together in a long time. The goal of that piece was to bring my worries about them to the front of my brain so I could properly address them and start to let them go. I think it’s working (better than it was).

How do you use social media in your life? Do you want more or less?

I use social media pretty casually as a way to show my personality in an honest way to people that I may or may not see everyday. It is a way to connect with people I rarely can interact with in person and can help to start real life artistic relationships and friendships. In the past year I have really enjoyed Facebook’s new Live feature. I “go live” often, sometimes with a plan and sometimes without. Sometimes the videos are funny, sometimes they are more melancholy, often they are boring. My goal for these videos is not to create stand alone art with them, but to use them more as sketches or ways to test an idea or concept. They are definitely a form of performance for me. I feel that my social media usage is productive for me right now, but I would like to adjust the ways I use social media and to curate my posts to have them reflect me more as an artist.

What is a physical material that you have worked with that feels more powerful than your body?

I don’t know if I actually have a good answer to this question but I thought it was really intriguing so I wanted to try to address it and start thinking about it more! The only thing I could think of was someone else’s body, but I don’t think that it is always the case that someone else’s body can be more powerful than your own. Still want to think on this one.

Identify some aspects of your past work that people have challenged/had problems with that you want to confront this semester

I would like to make work that is about bigger issues and not just work that is about me/my family/my identity. My current body of work includes a lot of self reflection and I think that part of my art isn’t over and won’t ever be over but I feel like I could start working with concepts and ideas bigger than myself. Last semester was mostly work examining myself and I feel like while this semester will be some more of that I also hope I can start to talk more about current issues.