Art

Adopting Hope

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“Something that always gives me hope for the future is my cat, Mickey. He was rescued off the streets of Malibu, California and then brought to a shelter East of Los Angeles. He was part of a “trap, neuter, release” program and half of his left ear had been clipped as proof. Suffice to say he had a hard time trusting people and to make things worse, he was partnered with a cranky cat in a cage at the shelter, so he never really had a safe space of his own. On December 27, 2021, he was adopted by a woman who had him for less than 24 hours before returning him, stating that he went crazy at her house and then hid. All cat experts and experienced owners can tell you that cats need to be introduced to new environments bit by bit, and most cats, particularly former street cats, take anywhere from hours to a year to stop hiding. Mickey was given a free run of his new home in the first hour. Fast forward, and my mom and I meet him at the shelter during a volunteer shift a day later. We came back two more times and on the second visit, we adopted him, and the rest is history. His new adoption anniversary is December 30th. Now named after the comic book character, Opus the penguin, he is loving life, becoming more confident around people, and bonding with his new big sister. Opus went through so much hardship, separated from his mother months before most kittens, with a hectic adoption story, and a dangerous life on the streets. But today, he has a loving home, and is bouncing back with a little TLC and catnip. If he can stay resilient and end up happier than ever before, then so can I, and so can anyone.”

DESTRUCTION

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“This digital art I made is called destruction because we are not only ruining the earth but we’re ruining everything on it, even us. My artwork shows the injustice in the world nowadays. One of the major injustices is teenage violence and police brutality. Many people overlook that type of stuff in this world. I hope you enjoy my artwork and I hope it makes an impact and makes people start noticing the injustices in this world.”

Destition: Movie

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“Destition: Movie shows how film can be a temporary escape from reality.”

Warm Embrace

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“Warm Embrace is an artwork I created where there are two people coming together for a hug and there is a caring moment between the two.”

The Eyes

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“My piece is about the feeling of vulnerability and social anxiety, about how it feels for me when I try to pass off that I’m fine and how I feel like anything I do, people will judge me, as if all eyes are on me.”

The Golden Fields

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“The meaning of the piece represents prejudice and stereotypes always following the individual in the portrait, the individual being Hispanic and Latino. Instead of letting these stereotypes control their life the person keeps walking through the twists and turns of life’s road.”

Growing Flower Tree

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“During the transition of coming back to school (in-person), I felt I lost my sense of balance which set me and my plants to wilt and burn a bit. Something that helped me bring back hope for the future was speaking affirmative words and phrases before leaving home and starting anything new.”

Recovering

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My painting “Recovering” is about my anchor. Last year after coming back to school and getting involved with several school activities, I had some problems with mental health- overthinking stuff, getting pressured, not maging my time wisely- so I had to find a way to go back and make an anchor. As I was working on this art piece, I thought about what my anchor is and how I use it. Since I thought that I needed to focus and concentrate on my studying and academics, I chose studying as my anchor and started using my schoolwork to help me refocus and give myself a sense of accomplishment.

Why We Fight

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My entry is about the recent overturning of Roe V. Wade. On the canvas, there is a television playing a news coverage of a protest fighting against the overturning. The people protesting look upset and are all holding signs with pro-choice designs. There is a woman intently watching the screen looking slightly unkempt with bandages. This ties into the theme of justice I was going for, where even if you are not able to persolly be there, you can still watch others fight for the same cause. With a constant barrage of bad news in today’s media, it’s easier to feel desensitized and pretend like it doesn’t affect you. A lot of people don’t understand the repercussions of such a case being overturned or who it affects. Even if Roe V. Wade being reversed doesn’t affect you, it can harm the people around you and takes away women’s rights to make healthcare decisions for themselves. You never know when something like this could affect family or friends—it hurts everybody. Understandably, there are a lot of circumstances that would prevent someone from being able to fight for themself. The good thing about this world is that there are still people willingly putting themselves out there despite all odds to fight for everybody, both for you and me. I felt like a protest was a great example of this message.

Runner

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With this piece, my goal was to show a runner escaping a cluster of chaotic things. Running has been my “anchor” over the past few months, so I decided to have the person running away from the sort of nonsensical, disorganized madness that, without an anchor, can really leave people detached from what matters. I painted the runner fairly small because it allowed the overwhelmingness of all of the stuff behind it to show through, while also setting them in front of the objects to give the idea of an escape. I also used night and day to represent the more chaotic aspects of the right side of the painting and the calm of the left.