A year ago I wrote my first Artist Statement, aside from writing a recommendation letter about yourself, I found this to be one of the hardest things I have ever written. I had to pull that document out of the cobwebs and mazes of my old laptop's files this spring when I was submitting work into the 2011 Scholarship Show. I remember reading it and thinking it was so silly and I didn't want to use it for the show, so I re-worked it, but still hung onto the original document .
I wrote this in Jason Clark's Career Practicum class, and well since I am completely throwing myself into a blog, I may as well just throw my anxieties out there too. This class was one of the first "Art" classes I ever took at BSU, and at the time I was an Art Education Major, so for most of the class, I believed that I would never have to use most of the content anyway (I was wrong, by the way). But aside from that, I was in a class that included students in it who all knew one another and I felt like a newbie outsider. (Thank you Jason and Gary Hill, because I know you both had a huge part in this feeling changing.)
OK! So back to my Artist Statement. This was one of the assignments..I would have rather written a 49 page paper on how to blink one's eye. I am surprised that my Delete button still works on the dinosaur laptop...
Ah HA! There was a reason I couldn't produce a statement..I didn't have one, I didn't have a 'Theme' or a 'Motivation,' The moment I grasped this feeling of confusion in where I stood in an Art World, I let the word processor have it! My statement became this jungle of connections and feelings of what had brought me to this time and place in my life.
So as I was sitting here, wondering how to start this blog, I couldn't have thought of a better way to start than to throw one of my first artist documents here. ..and you might agree after you check it out.
Ashly Karl
Artist Statement
Spring 2010
Mom bought me my first sketchbook in grade five. She was aware that I enjoyed drawing, coloring, and just doodling. What she wasn’t aware of is that she provided me with a sense of therapy. Sitting in my room, with my collection of pastels, crayons, markers, chalk, colored pencils, you name it, I left this world and resided in another…until dinner.
Over the past year, I have been trying to find out who I am as an artist. What makes me an artist? What gives me the right to even apply that label on myself? I cringe when people close to me call me an artist. I feel that to be called an ‘artist’ needs to be earned respectively. So I got “Artist of the Month” a few times in grade school.. So I can pick up a pencil and draw you a landscape.. Is that what makes you an artist?
I found an answer that pleases myself. It is not what comes off of your paintbrush, your pencil, or your finger, it is what comes out of you.
What comes out of me are influences from the nature around me. An image from nature can only be seen once, because it is ever so changing. Even if time stood still for one leaf that touched you today, doesn’t mean it is going to touch you tomorrow.
In my art I want to show you how I see it. I want to show you what I can do with it. I want to make the changes before they happen. I want to challenge my memory and show you and myself what I saw in those woods.
In the past I strayed away from art, thinking that I needed to find a career and once settled I could come back to art as a hobby. The influence taken from the ones closest to me, I dove back into art head first. And have found, this is right where I need to be. Simply, making art.
So there you have it. I still find it silly.
