• re: Untitled

    it seems you choose art as a tool for developing a personal growth. If it is so, do you think that different art techniques and materials (graphite, printmaking, oil etc) will affect us in different ways? Do they have different benefit on us? For example, how do acrylics help you channelling the stress. Do you think that art materials have a role in enhancing the knowledge of ourselves as artists and as persons?  Thank you. Paola Bartolozzi

    • Thank you for your thought-provoking comment Paola! I definitely agree that my art fosters my personal growth. However, I am  not sure that it was ever so deliberate. I pick media based on my mood. Ink, color, and paint are bold and had been my biggest challenges successively. When I feel brave those are what I attempt. When I seek solace I revert back to what I know, sketches in graphite. Over the years I have grown more comfortable with pen and color. I tend to use both more often now. When we practice what we fear, we eventually start to feel safer. My goal as an artist is to always keep having challenges. I never want to feel too safe.

      I think acrylics are my newest challenge. I loved oil painting in college because of the way oils blended and the paint never dried so you could keep revising until it was just what you wanted. Acrylic has a sense of permanence, one of my greatest fears. However, I am learning the facet of acrylics which I enjoy most is that you can paint over something as if it never existed. You cannot adjust or refine, but in a sense you can erase. As a person, I find comfort in motion and growth as opposed to clean breaks and fresh starts. With all the moving I have done in the past six years, I feel that I have left a piece of my heart wherever I have been.