I'm interested in light and its relation to color - how it makes the towers and brick walls on campus glow golden at sunset and turns the clouds above Old Campus pastel pink if you walk across the Green at sunrise; how it falls through windows, illuminating the walls of the Chapel.
Because a camera can produce far more detailed observational images, I try to draw moments that strike me: the curve of the back on one of the Stations of the Cross sculptures, the brow furrowed in pain, the light from the other side of the Chapel bouncing off the shoulders. The shadow the crucifix casts, the flying dove and the hand, as the wall behind changes color throughout the year. Often I draw and paint from memory because what I wish to catch is a moment that lasts maybe a second or two. I think that creates a sort of experiential aspect, because I’m showing you what I noticed, not necessarily the whole picture.
My watercolor professor once told our class to avoid using black and brown for shadows. Black is, after all, made of all the colors. He said that everything is a color— the challenge is to find that color. To look for the vibrant colors around me is one of the most important lessons I have learned from my time at Yale, and, from STM: to look for them in the mundane, in the darkness, in people of all kinds and backgrounds. The colors are always there. You just have to look.
