Tell me a little about your senior project.

My senior project is the concept of what happened in The Garden of Eden, my surreal adaptation of that. It goes into a lot of different mediums and outlooks. We see a lot of different perspectives from each character who is famously part of Genesis. I’m translating this story into my own understanding of it. Also, the way people translate the bible intellectually and spiritually can be really off or really beautiful. I think that balance is really interesting to me and inspires a lot of this project. 

What forms will this take?

For one thing, I am doing a photo-roman film, kind of like stop motion using photographs. I’m photographing collages and editing those together to make a film, with a screenplay I wrote. To accompany this story that I’m playing out in the film is a series of long-form poems. There are seven for each character and they sort of pick up where the film left off. I think it’s important to watch the film and read the poems because there are parts that depend on each other. To go along with the poems there are hand-made photographs, I somewhat decided on lumens but I’m still unsure. I’m still experimenting with those processes because there’s just such a wide variety of hand-made photographs and I can’t do them all. I’m waiting until my poems are done because they are reverse ekphrastic, the photos with the poems. I’m basing the images of the photographs off the images I receive from the poems when I read them. In the end, I’m binding it all into a book. 

What made you choose this form for your senior project?

I knew it wasn’t gonna be just one thing, I don’t really work in one form. I take an idea and one process, usually writing and photographs, and it expands and branches out from there into painting and collage. It becomes a little untamed.

 Are the themes in this project common in your work?

I would say so. I think religion and spirituality are important. I tend to gravitate towards religious concepts in photography especially. I’m fascinated with exploring a lot of questions and delicate subjects in a worldly perspective.

You have your hands in so many mediums, is there one you started with?

When I was younger I started with painting, which I don’t think is something someone would peg me as. My dad was a painter and as childcare he would bring me to his studio. While he was working on his own things, he would put me in the corner with a canvas and some oil paints. He’s shown me pictures of what I’ve done and it’s so wild to see it kind of looks similar. When my parents separated and I moved away from my dad, I started writing while living with my mom because my mom’s a writer. 

 What are some of your inspirations?

Ann Carson has shaped me as a writer and an artist because of her lack of explanation for what she does and how she does it. She just kind of writes what she wants to write in the format she wants to write it in. She doesn’t need a reason, when people don’t understand it and get angry she doesn’t explain it and that’s okay. I really enjoy and admire that about her work. I wanna emulate that in some way. She does it so flawlessly that you still understand it. Her Autobiography of Red was a really big inspiration, just this clashing of this ancient being that nobody has messed with and these modern ideas and situations, melding them together in such an interesting and delicate and perfect way. I really enjoy that and I think that’s something that I really go towards with my work. I would also have to say Paula Rego is one of my favorite artists of all times. Her etchings especially, like her Peter Pan series and her nursery rhyme series. She does a lot of grim stuff with children’s themes. I really have to admire that and I like how she does younger themed things with an older tone. It's so dark and brings out a different look and perspective. These really classic tales, Mother Goose and Humpty Dumpty, if you think about these nursery rhymes they’re really grim. Makes you think, “why are they accepted to our lives without question?” She doesn’t accept it and questions that, and makes us question it with her work. Also, Marie Colvin. She brought awareness at every cost to herself. She lost her left eye, she eventually lost her life and I admire her so much. That’s amazing to me, and that’s what I wanna do moving forward.

What does your workspace look like right now?

I only have the floor of my room. Writers don’t get a studio space and photographers don’t get a studio space — I’m in both of these worlds and don’t benefit from either of them. I use my bedroom floor to do my collaging and my painting and my watercoloring. And then I have my little photo area set up right next to my bed. I have an Amazon Prime box that I put my collages in, then I have a tripod and a camera set up right above it, and that’s where I photograph. I’ve been having really bad neck and back aches because I’m hunched over all the time but it kinda works. I’ll be moving into the editing side of this soon so that’ll change a lot and be more my computer than a physical space. 

How far do you think you’ve come since the beginning of your college experience?

I’ve definitely come very very far. I remember in freshman year I wasn’t even sure what major I wanted. My mom, Monica, everyone was pushing me into writing but I didn’t know. I thought, “do I fit in? I don’t know.” I follow that question all the time because I still don't really know. That has stayed the same but I have changed in a lot of ways with my work, with my understanding of myself and what I’m interested in, what’s important to me to put out into the world. I think making art is really amazing, I’ve always thought so. But I think moving into the graduating/post-graduation world, I’m gonna be focusing more on what I can do to make change and use my art to bring awareness. I love making art and I wanna make art, even journalism. I think journalism is art. I don’t even know if I will be in journalism but I definitely think I’ve changed there. I don’t think I really understood as a freshman that art was such a big world. College really opened up this world of awareness and beauty and gore.

What would you like to do after you graduate, ideally?

That’s actually something that I really don't know. I have some goals. I definitely want to join the Peace Corps, that's my biggest, soonest goal. Before that I have to gain experience, so I’m gonna join Americorps. I wanna keep helping and keep making art. I really love working on projects and I’ll probably always have a creative project going on, probably a crazy one like this one. I won’t make it as compact as two semesters or anything like that though. I’ll also keep traveling and visiting places that are rich in art history that I can keep learning about. I do want to maybe pursue journalism or photo-journalism. I’ve been seriously considering those since sophomore/junior year. If not, I’ve been in the medicinal plant community for a while so I’ve considered that for my Master’s degree. I’m definitely getting one but I don’t know of what yet. I just know I wanna help people in some way, either by making medicine out of natural ingredients that's more accessible and healthy, or by taking photos and writing about what's going on in the world. And keep making art always. I have a lot of dreams and I haven't really put them all together yet.

How do you feel the school has impacted you?

Positively. A few professors really had my back, I have to say they have been the best teachers I’ve ever had in my entire life. I really have to recognize them and thank them. I don’t think I would be where I am today, have these ambitions and really see my self-worth as an artist and a human if I hadn’t been told by them that I’m good at doing this and I should keep doing it. I think the teachers on our campus are really good at telling us when we’re good at doing something and should keep going. I know Ryan has told me so many times “Well maybe stay away from this but you’re really good at doing this.” He’s really good at guiding me in the right direction. I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have Ryan. He’s really been such a rock, I have to really thank him, same with Yoav. I have to thank them for eternity because they’ve guided me so much. Ryan has been the one to bounce my ideas off of and to point out themes and patterns that I wasn’t even seeing. I think the teachers on our campus are really great. That’s something that we have to acknowledge a little more because I’m not sure if people really realize what we have. We’re all gonna leave at some point and we’re not gonna have a Ryan or a Yoav. I really appreciate both of them and everyone else who has helped me. My peers who have helped me, all of the juniors in the writing department who have seen this project, even the visual parts, since last semester, and have been my visual critiquers but also my writing help too, I have to thank all of them. I don’t know where my project would be without their support. I definitely feel supported in my department. Leaving is going to be tough but it’ll be nice to move on. I'm really excited to go on with my life and live on, past New Hampshire, but also I’ll never forget my time here. Everything happens for a reason. 

What advice do you have for underclassmen and incoming freshmen?
Definitely start your senior project way beforehand. Even if you end up changing it drastically, you'll have two really great projects in the works. You want the most time you possibly can, it’s kind of silly to expect us to do this grand, amazing project in two semesters. It’s not realistic and it’s not gonna be amazing no matter who you are. You’re gonna look back on it some day and wish you had more time. Just do that favor for yourself, I wish I did. I wish I had more time because it would be so much better if I’d started it last year, if I had more time for the illustrations. I really don’t know how to draw but I find myself in this project facing a lot of things that I didn’t know that I’d have to do and if I only had maybe just even another month or so to really hone these skills and just really work on these individual illustrations and watercolors, I think they’d be a lot better. That being said they are all in my individual style. My style is very different and I would say to freshmen, just learn to love your style no matter what your medium is, whether you are an illustrator or a design or a writer, just try to find your style and love your style because it will definitely change and it will get more and more you as the semesters go by. You’re gonna see it in your work and once you go back to freshman year and read what you first wrote or see your first photograph or painting, you’ll be blown away and so thankful that’s not you anymore. Let yourself feel gratitude for growing, which is such a mundane thing. I don’t think that we do that enough. I definitely don’t do that enough. I’ve really learned so much and made myself learn so much and the teachers have made me whether I wanted to or not. It’s something you have to accept and welcome.