Year 2018

In an effort to push myself to create more and to document what I'm creating my New Year's Resolution is to make art every single day & post my creations weekly.

I thought about doing this many times this past year and even had a few weeks in which I created something everyday. However, I didn't keep this up and I didn't post most of what I made either.

Below is a recap of the art that I've made this past year as a sort of...introduction? prelude? to my future documentation.

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To start, my most significant work of 2018: Untitled I (Kalief).

A portrait of Kalief Browder. You can read more about him here.

This portrait is the first in a series of meditation works. My upcoming piece is a portrait of Nia Wilson. Read more about her here.

I started this series after I was rereading an article about Kalief's experiences in the final years of his life. Halfway of the article I was sobbing.

For the past few years, I've grown accustomed to feeling anger when hearing about stories of injustice, but when reading about Kalief I just felt deep sadness. Even just now, when rerereading the article I linked above, I started crying.

Throughout college I kept myself busy running organizations like Feminists United and Rethink Incarceration. But, post-grad I've been much less engaged in community work and I've felt much less empowered. So, when re-experiencing Kalief's story, I just felt sadness that there was nothing anyone could do to bring justice back to this young man.

Years have passed since Kalief Browder's death and memorials and vigils have been held. I decided all I can do is mediate upon his life and to remember him.

I spent approximately 45 hours meditating upon Kalief's life.

The final piece is 18"x24"

Made entirely of dots from a .45 mm pen

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I decided to complete Untitled I (Kalief) by stippling after having completed this piece, Prelude to Meditation, 2018. I worked on this as a practice in drawing faces and shading. I was surprised to find that despite how tedious this 14"x11" drawing was to create (with .5 and .2 mm pens), I felt incredibly at peace throughout the process.

I thus decided to create more pieces with this level of detail.