Writing an Artist’s Statement

1. Describe your work as if you were describing it to a person in another room.

My narrative is in a large hardcover bound book. It is created in pen drawing

with handwritten text. The drawings typically cover the whole page and vary
in level of detail. The style also varies between pages, but is still recognizably
the same artist and same story. The pen drawings have a variety of thick and
thin lines with some areas including crosshatching for shading.

2. What is the artistic statement that you are trying to make with your work?

I am trying to convey how I felt at the time of the events taking place. I want
the viewer/reader to understand the lost and hurt feeling that I was
experiencing. Though there is a story and sequence of events happening, I
would like to focus on the emotional part of the events and how they made
me feel rather than what was happening.

3. How did you use design elements, materials, and composition to make this
statement to the audience?

In my work I am trying to communicate how I was feeling at these times

through my drawings and words. Though the story itself is important to me I
am more interested in the feelings I had during that time. My text is minimal
and descriptive at times because of this. And though there is dialogue it is
only key parts of it. I also vary the perspective of my drawings depending on
how I want the viewer to experience my mood in the drawing. Because I am
not only thinking about the actual events that happened, but also my feelings
and thoughts at the time I sometimes include elements that may not seem
important. But they were areas of that time that I focused in on and
remember closely. I also often use the whole page for one thought, because I
find myself grouping pages by thoughts rather than lengths of time.

4. How does your statement connect to the unit’s big ideas?

The unit is about conveying a personal narrative through visuals. I am telling

the story of the last year of my life in my narrative. The last year contained a
lot of confusion, big life changes, and large events. Though there is a lot of
events to be covered in the story I am more concerned with how I felt during
these changes. By documenting a personal narrative I am connecting to the
units ideas.
Writing an Artist’s Statement

5. What were your influences when making the work?

I was thinking about my own experiences and how to translate them visually.
I was also thinking about Jillian Tamaki’s beautiful illustrations in her novels.
She uses so much detail in her drawings which is beautiful and I love but it
isn’t practical for me or my style. I like to include details but in my own
stylized fashion. I was also thinking a lot about Jeffery Brown’s book Funny
Misshapen Body, I think it was the biggest influence on the way I have gone
about this project and writing/illustrating it. He draws in a very stylized
manner, that is consistent and fairly basic. He also sections every page into
smaller segments in the same way each page. My drawings don’t really reflect
his style. But he described his writing process in the books which was really
influential to me. I follow the same process he does currently. He plans 10
pages at a time, draws right away with pen, and organizes his content by
related ideas rather than chronologically. Though mine is chronological it
follows the flow of my thoughts and feelings at the same time. I include or
leave things out based on how they connect to my other feelings in the book.

6. How does your work reflect the work of the artists we studied?

Jeffery Brown’s Funny Misshapen Body has been hugely important to me in

the creation of my project, as detailed above. Reading his book changed the
entire way I approached working on this. I had initially been planning the
entire story out page by page. I have found it easier to take it a few pages at a
time and then plan again. I also recently took visiting artist seminar with
Sanaz Sohrabi, who taught us a gleaning process. This is the process of
collecting in order to make work. I like to think of this book as a collection of
my thoughts and experiences from the last year. Not every thought or
moment is important to me. But I include those that are. Along with things
that may feel strange, like a packing list, or map of my room. These things are
almost breaks in the story that still tell me something. And are important to
me. Though not a part of the story. I learned to incorporate these moments
from her. I have been considering all of the artists studied and included in the
handouts in my consideration of each page. I try to match a style of
illustration or layout to what works best for the content of the page.