Witness the Small Life – Self-Interest

Mia Lambert 1 Comment

New year, new semester, new entry! Huzzah to the jugs of coffee, days of work, and more hours of sunshine to come our way. Although we’re barely a full week into classes, it already feels like a semester to rival all others.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept and physicality of self. In my figure drawing class this semester we have a self portrait to do every week, a new version of ourselves frozen in the moment we create them. As someone who started as a self-taught artist in middle school, I’ve always used myself as a model in my artwork. It’s the easiest reference to use, right at the ready as long as you have a phone or a mirror. What started just as studies of human anatomy started to grow into modes of self-expression. I started to draw myself not just as what I saw but as what I wanted to see. Somebody confident, or witty, and especially self-assured. I dreamed up fantastical stories and places that I would put myself in as if I always existed there. An ideal within a dream that took place between the covers of my sketchbook. Then, in high school, I decided to move beyond the literal and into the conceptual. For my AP art classes my upperclassman years I explored the events, memories, and ideas that shaped me throughout my youth. From identity, to nostalgia, to crisis I captured it through the explosion of visual language that I started to hone in my teenagedom. It was Covid, of course, so being cooped up inside meant I spent a lot of time with myself, whether I liked it or not. This lead to the creation of self-portraits in forms of crochet sweaters, clay sculptures, a pair of junk earrings–whatever I could get my hands on really . The expansion of self-portraiture that I created in this time pushed not only my perception of self but my understanding of how I could really capture that version of self beyond what is there. Now in college I’ve turned back to traditional self-portraits with a newfound appreciation. I’ve learned how a drawing of your face is more than just your face, it exists as a record of every decision made to create that face. Every line of shadow and scratch of contour is an example of our very impact of choice onto that page. As an artist, and as a person really, every thing I do is influenced by who I am. The idea of self and identity are always shifting and transforming that I find myself fascinated by the very concept (which is absolutely why I have a billion of drawings of myself). I think it’s funny to say I love drawing myself as both a slightly conceited thing and a truly passionate declaration. Through the creation of my self-portraits throughout the years I’ve been able to confront who I am and grow so much of my self-love from those moments of confrontation. To see, create, and capture is to love and how wonderful is to do that through the practice of self-portraits.

To take into our next week:

Ins: Clogs (always!!), sunglasses, oolong tea, accents, cheesy soup, practicing an early bird routine, medium roast coffee, dressing up in costume.

Outs: Sour tomatoes, sore feet, undercooked onions, objectively bad jokes, character assassinations for the sake of plot, not doing wrist stretches, spoiled milk.

Here’s to another lovely year together and to even more witnessing of the small life all around us 😀

LOG_039_HUIJ

Traveler Leave a comment

Above: the beginnings of a village established on KHEPRI-1c. Though most of the planet’s population were transient researchers, some found their calling among the icy peaks and igneous valleys and sought to become permanent residents. Powered by geothermal activity beneath the crust, their massive radar tower was the main source of communication with the outside world, and it expanded into one of the biggest outposts on the planet. However, less than a decade later, misfortune struck: a major earthquake followed by a particularly harsh storm wiped out most of its population, and the remaining survivors elected to abandon the crumbling town to the mercies of 1c’s eternal winter.

Illy

Micey Leave a comment

Imagine this: Skinless ghost villain dressed in a white suit and who can control rose vines. That’s Illy!

Read more: Illy

This is my attempt in learning how to draw roses.

Her outfit is based off Julia Cotton’s from Hellraiser 2, and Mark Twain. I like the idea of bandages trying to keep out not only blood, but flowers. I think I’ll take the rose vest over the tie and regular vest. When Illy goes unhinged, I imagine she both bleeds through the bandages, and her thorns and roses grow through the fabric

~Sappy Daze~ Day 12

Sappy Leave a comment 
PMS 

Pardon my speech. As a 
poor, malfunctioning soul,
pleasantries might not suffice as I 
pacify this major s*** of a time.

Pre-menstrual symptoms 
popularly include munchies--
pizza and milk-chocolate-coated strawberries. 
Problematically, my sanity is 
progressively missing, so
please my satiations and 
perhaps I might sincerely 
produce my pretty smile.

- Sappy

Capturing Campus: Washing Ritual

EKArts Leave a comment

Content warning: Obsessive compulsive behavior, gore

Washing Ritual

Close the door; lock it for privacy; check again, for privacy; remember to breathe; turn the faucet; let the water pour pour pour into the basin; watch the steam build up; pump the soap; press down one, two, three; like a cloud; scrub the palms and the wrists; the palms again; get the fingers: three, four, five; the frog webs or minor syndactyly—it must be one of the two: three, four, five; dig in the groves and under the fingernails that don’t have dirt under them but maybe they do, they always could: one, two, three, four, five; move to the left hand; one, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four, five; one, two, three, four—the water should be scalding, just enough to blister, but not enough to regret; scrub hard, scrub very hard; scrape at the holes and the raw patches; rub away the fine lines, the creases, the folds in the flesh; keep going; the blisters will go away in an hour or two—maybe three; another pump: one, two, three; again—the right hand; the left hand; keep going; don’t stop; it burns because it’s working