Everywhere we go—to work, to school, or even to drive about in our cars—music is played to fill the air with booming waves. Everybody's life is enriched by music. It may inspire, be creative, ease emotions, and create a lot of communities. However, what happens if we incorporate our passions into our careers? That's exactly what Emma Henderson (she/her) is doing. transforming our perceptions of music through a variety of images that are bursting with vitality, vibrancy, and vibrant moments of enjoyment. Emma and I chat in my apartment after a warm dinner and delightful conversations. Emma talks about getting into concert photography, connection between artist and fans and much more. How did getting into concert photography change your life? Wow! That’s a big one. Right off the bat. Haha. I think that it was a pretty big push to even pick up a camera for me. It took me a while to actually pursue concert photography after I had already decided to be a photographer. In the beginning it was an aesthetic inspiration. However it was always a goal I was pushing towards until I finally did it. Now I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. I’m really excited about what I’m creating and the people that I get to meet. Plus the experiences I get to have because of it. Emma Henderson, SPOTLIGHT! , 2024 Concert photography became popular in the 1950s/60s due to the genre of rock and roll. It’s still a relatively new thing that a lot of people are getting into. Why do you think concert photography is such a captivating field people are gravitating towards? I think it's an exciting way to interact with music and not just being an audience member. It makes you feel like you're there for a bigger reason than to just enjoy the art. You're there to capture and find some way to sell. Depending on what you’re using the imagery for, but it's like one step above being an audience member participating, you're reacting. It seems so cool, especially if you can do it well. You get to interact with artists that you love. Meet new artists and enjoy their creativity and create in reaction to their creativity. It's like a push to keep going and making more work. Emma Henderson, SPOTLIGHT! , 2024 What are some important factors you’ve learned while getting into concert photography? Crowd management is the biggest one. A lot of smaller venues don’t have a designated pit where photographers can be. For instance, like a bar, you’re going to have to push your way through. Else you're not going to get what you need to. The thought of trying not to be in everyone’s way so you're not affecting the performance and ruining an audience view. They paid to be there and are the ones that fund the music. So you don’t want to ruin it, but you kind of have to be up there because the band wants good photos. I didn’t realize how intense it would be, like, “Oh my gosh, I need to be in that spot right now, but there are twenty people shoulder to shoulder that I have to get through before I can get there." It's all happening in a split second, and you can’t stop the show for a shot; you just gotta get it or you don’t. That’s one of the important things that you have to keep in mind. You also don’t have to have the best equipment for it. A lot of it can be done post-editing. When I first started with a Canon Rebel, I was creating just as well as with what I'm creating now on my Canon R6. It's a huge quality jump, and it's easier when you have better equipment. But it's totally doable, and you can totally be successful with starter equipment. As a concert photographer, I feel, when one gets invited to these spaces, you’re surrounded by energy, the electricity flowing from the sounds, and the fans cheering on the artists. There’s this unspoken bond you have between them both. How important is it for you that you’re capturing those sentimental moments between the artist and fans? It's really important. I started as a fan going to shows and being in the audience, and it’s what you're there for. You wouldn’t be there if you weren’t interested. There are many factors that go into making a live show and letting it run smoothly. All of them are important. You have the band, the audience, the sound technicians, and the people who move everything in and out. Depending on how big or small it is, you can have a whole bunch of people there to create this experience for everyone. It's not just the band, nor the singer; you know, I think it would be really shallow if you didn’t capture it. It wouldn’t do the experience justice if you’re not capturing everything. I feel like an interaction between an artist baring their soul and someone receiving it is kind of how I see the band/audience trade going on. There’s so much energy and power there, and it's visually rich. I feel like it's a great shot. I love being able to send people pictures of them interacting with their favorite artist. I’ve had people come up to me and ask, “Did you get this moment when I reached out and touched this guy’s hand?” Or, “When she signed my chest, did you catch that? Because I would love a picture of that.” So making memories last or just being there to capture those moments is really important and a big part of the job. That’s a good one Haha Haha Music is a valuable and important asset to many people’s lives. It’s cultural, lyrical, and personal. It navigates us in a way that helps bring out emotions we probably haven’t felt in a while. What has music done for you throughout your life? Lots! I grew up in a strict, religious household, and at first it was like, “Oh yeah, this is what we’re listening to”—country music every once in a while and religious music—then we left the church. Trying to find who you are outside of religion, music was my outlet. That’s how I found everything. I found my friends in middle school because of our shared interest in music. I think a lot of my values too, majority of the time, are pushed because of these subcultures I'm in with the music that I listen to. They're all drawn together because of whatever genre you're hearing; like for me, it's EMO, rock, and alternative. I'm meeting these people who are really interested in making the world a better place. That idea of acceptance and like we’re all outcasts, but together we can be a family. That’s always what I’ve drawn from music. You have the artist saying things that you’re deeply relating to, and you know that you're not alone with a lot of the things you're feeling. Not only do you have music itself making you feel like yourself and making you feel heard and seen. Plus, it's teaching you to be accepting of everyone no matter what. Then you also have this group of people who couldn’t be kinder; they couldn’t care more than they do, which is so nice. I know that if I had never found music as a passion, I would be a very different person, personality-wise, in my values and views. I've had my fair share of nights falling asleep to sad songs, hahaha, and sobbing because I couldn’t find any other way to release my emotions. With finding community and searching who I was through music, you can also use it as therapy. To know that what you’re going through is not permanent and also that other people have gone through it too. I feel like when you look back on this, its going to be rambling but its okay hahaha For someone, like me, who has seen a lot of your time and effort at this university. It didn't really dawn on me until you mentioned that you’d wanted to shoot concert photos. You've done a lot of experimenting with screen printing, portraiture, and photographic sculpture. which you appreciated and taken great delight in. It was striking to witness, but it was also evident as your artistic personality. What has experimenting done to make it a valuable tool for your work? It has gotten rid of a lot of doubt and fear because I’ve done crazier things. When I'm sitting and editing a photo, I go, “I'm going to push this saturation all the way up; I’m not going to sit there and be like, ‘Oh, I can’t do that because it's not technically accurate. I’ve already made those jumps of pushing technically accurate out the window, and I’ve seen that they can, but not always be successful, of course. They have a lot of potential and possibility. I think now I have the confidence to push my own style, and that’s how I'm going to do it. I’ve had a lot of artists talk to me about how, like, “Your color is so crazy; whenever you give us photographs compared to other photographers, your colors are always so bright and out of this world.” That’s what I pride myself on, and I enjoy it, and other people seem to enjoy it. It brings a confidence because then those other things aren’t necessarily that important, and I'm not showing them off to the world. Sure, I'll take some pictures and show some people, but it feels like what I want to put out into the world. Music is experimental, like we’re all just doing things until something's cool; haha, we're just trying. Especially with music, people are just making stuff and making stuff until they find something that sounds good. I feel that’s what I'm also doing. I'm taking pictures, and I'm finding what works and looks cool and what doesn’t. I feel pretty comfortable and confident giving someone the photo and saying, This is the work I did, and not, “Ohh.” I’ve been through my fair share of being like, “They won’t like these; these are crazy.” Now I can hand over an album and be like, “This is what I did. Of course I'm still working on it a little, but because you can never not have doubt in yourself and in your work, but I think I'm getting there. Emma Henderson, SPOTLIGHT! , 2024 what festivals or concerts you wish you could shoot for? All of them. Any time I see a band doing it, I just wonder, "Oh, can I do that?" I would love to do a full festival. I went to SOWHAT fest as an audience member two years ago. I remember when their photos came out, I was scouring for all the photographers on the floor just to see what they got and how they experienced it versus how I experienced it as an audience member. Having that rush of all the stages and so much going on at once, I would just love to do a huge festival. I’d love to photograph a band that I listened to before I started concert photography. Because now, of course, I'm going to listen to all the bands that I go shoot for all the local, small shows and become a fan while photographing them. I feel there would be something about going and photographing people like Pierce the Veil or MCR; like, yeah, little middle school me would be geeking right now. That’s the experience that I want to have for sure. So yeah, anything, everything, all of it. Emma Henderson, SPOTLIGHT! , 2024 Your work has transformed into an array of unthinkable, colorful wave of energy and rawness that is poignant to your beginnings as a concert photographer. In the future what is something that you hoped you’d learned while staring at the beginnings of your work?
 The first thing that comes to mind isn’t technical or aesthetic, but I'm really hoping I get the hang of networking. It's so intimidating right now. Trying to reach out and be friends with people is intimidating, especially for me because I never leave my house. I'm just trying to go and insert myself into this world that already exists. I'm hoping that I get the hang of that because these people are amazing and so talented and doing it every day and grinding and getting their music out there, which is something I need to be doing. It's nerve-racking but rewarding. But technically, I don’t know; I feel like I have a good handle on things—settings, editing, and how I get my work out there—but, I mean, it can only go up with experimenting. I'm hoping that I see some improvement because I don’t want to be static. I want to work with people who are willing to be experimental, fun, and exciting and get new outcomes and be cool with it and make it their own. I'm hoping that’s what I'll take in the future. It's so uncertain; everything is uncertain, and you can’t always google, and you have to go and do it; you kinda just have to talk to people who’ve already had experience and experience it yourself and just do it. I'm not very good at that; I like having a roadmap, but it's okay; I'm getting there. Thank you Emma for doing this interview with me Your welcome thanks for having me and being interested in my work and so supportive Of course I would be. You’re obviously my best friend and I’ve seen you grow so much from every stage and its comforting to know that you’re in a space where you feel like you can do this and very confident. Your going to push the boundaries and just go forward. I love you I love you too One significant example of how we establish a unique connection between fans and artists in the music scene is concert photography. Showcasing the artist's distinct styles along the entire journey. Transforming the possibilities of documenting music in a enrich, energizing way. I've always had a great affection for Emma because of her pleasant atmosphere and unwavering commitment to her work. Seeing her develop as an artist genuinely shows her cool nature of an unmistakable pure talent . Her insights on her own development, confidence, and will to achieve more, highlight the manner in which artists define themselves. Her art is lively, boisterous, and filled with fast-paced, seemingly timeless moments. Emma’s journey has only just begun. She is a pillar to bring forth her love of music with photography to which lead to her fated density. Find Emma’s work here - https://emmahendersonphotography.cargo.site/

How do we all begin to understand who we really are? We all are a part of a universe filled with many other universes that have yet to be known. We’re only a small part of a big whole. As humans, our identity is not limited to what others may think, but our identity is truly found when we’re surrounded by the community we choose and those yet-to-be-discovered things that will bring forth the best parts of our lives. Painter Avery M. Michel (they/them) is transforming the way their life has transformed into different outlets of creativity inspired by mythology, graphic novels, and historical art that takes a twist to come into the compositions of their headspace. Combining different forms of bringing to life their internal anxieties with the existential in the use of reflecting on oneself to make a visual tension that utilizes religious, historical icons, queer figures, and friends to display those internal conversations. I talk with Avery on the fourth floor of JCM (Joann Cole Mitte) after our photoshoot in the painting studio that is filled with the dashes of paint of different colors, music filling the studio, and others quietly painting away in their own world. Avery talks about identity, community, the past, influences and where their future is going.  How did painting come into your life?   I started painting in high school. For one of my classes we had to do an assigned project. After a while, I was the only kid in my grade taking art. At the level I was at in art three and four, I was the only junior and senior, so by that time my art teacher was basically saying, Make your own project; do what you want to do, but run them by me, and they introduced me to oil painting, and then from there I fell in love with painting and only painted at that point. Did you also experiment with different techniques of painting?   I would use an airbrush every now and then, and I got into acrylic in the way of printing, making, and painting in that way. I found that recently I’ve been playing more with the posca medium, and I’ve always liked the graphic style, so I’ve been incorporating posca and acrylic markers in my college work. How did you go about working on a large scale?   The first painting I did was a 30x40, and it kept getting bigger from there. I was never presented from the beginning with the option of small-scale painting. I eventually did for the class, but yeah, it was something I was introduced to, and I tend to like going bigger. There’s something monstrous and monumental that sucks you in more so, and it’s just nice doing broader strokes and using your whole arm when you paint than what you would do for a smaller one. Can you walk me through your artistic process? I think my work in general is best described as contents in my head dumped out. My process is very eclectic. I hoard pictures, and I’ll dig through them for different historical art references and compositions. Or I’ll take pictures of my friends, and I’ll collage on top of pictures. While I’m collaging, I’m trying to think of different resources of the medium I’m interested in and stories, both historical and mythological contents, and then everything kinda expands upon itself as I’m working on it. Things keep getting added to it layer-wise. So yeah, things just get stacked upon themselves as I work on them and get more layers of references out. Since coming to university how has finding a community of friends, artist help shape who you are as an artist and in normal everyday setting? It’s been so important to who I am and what I’m making. Much of my work is dealing with things like identity and the introspective. Things that were a result of a lack of community and trying to find a sense of self within that lack of intrapersonal relationships and outré personal relationships. Once I came here and found a community that I could call as a family as my own, it really changed the trajectory of my work. I went from doing mostly individual self-projects to painting myself with my friends and my loved ones. Exploring what it means as someone who didn’t have community to now be surrounded with people and still have those feelings and anxiety of isolation and loneliness now around people that I feel comfortable with. Is that hard to deal with at times? It's push and pull. I think it’s such a melancholy dualistic thing that I kinda got used to but … I hate juxtapose. It’s one of those art words but it’s just like living in constant juxtaposition of like I’m happy but this thing is always in the back of my head. I was looking at your work and the way its stylized seems to me, in the style and art movement of expressionism and surrealism. Both movements/art forms that has emotive responses, departing from past standard techniques, challenge the mind with the inner emotions of the artist. How did coming into your style develop with you centering yourself in the majority of your work?      I did go through a lot of personal and emotional struggle in high school, and I think the way I came into that headspace in my work was just mainly trauma. It can leave you questioning yourself and how you’re interacting with others. I felt like the two go hand in hand: adolescence and trying to figure out who you are and trauma causing me to not really know who I was, or have a firm grasp on that. I found that self-portraits depicting myself as not necessarily trying to project myself out, but trying to depict myself as who I am. My work helps me see layers of myself that I don’t realize and helps me understand who I am. I’m just going to keep studying myself until I understand who I am. That’s also why I enjoy having a found family and depicting myself with them. If there’s one thing I feel super sure about, it’s that no matter how much I don’t understand myself, or how to describe myself, I think our friends and found family and their projection of kindness and love towards us are just a reflection of what we give back to them. It’s just pouring back and forth. I think that’s been the most grounding thing I’ve found from making my work. Avery M. Michel "Haus of Venus" , 2024, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 48 x 60 In When thinking about queer art in history there is no archival material to where we can definitely say it started in this century on that date etc. Queer art wasn’t seen, or allowed to be shown in the public due to religious scrutiny and political ideologies. How have you learned to resist the need to cater to people who don’t align with you and your identity?      I’ve found that whenever I would try to cater to it, people wouldn’t understand it. In the exact same way when I wasn’t catering it. After a while I just realized they're not liking it when I’m trying to make it for them. Why am I not just making my stuff for me? queer hasn’t always been recorded well, but there’s always a visible hand if you know what to look for. Like cheesecake,and the style of sexualization of Saint Sebastian, and that’s a big queer Catholic saint just by the terms of the way he’s been depicted. Is one that can be relatively moronic, and that’s one of the earliest Christian examples I could think of where queer art is being visible even though it’s not queer art. Avery M. Micheal, "American Requiem " , 2024, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 36 x 48 In Your work is often vibrant, electric, and significantly attributes the motifs of self exploration, love of identity, and love of discovery. How is your thesis work different from that? I have definitely been playing a lot more. I’ve been mixing a lot of render and unrender of mixing up styles themselves. I’ve wanted to include contours and graphic elements. I am heavily inspired by comic books and graphic mediums, so I’ve been wanting to include contour lines for some things instead of fully rendering them out. Outlying characters, the inclusion of sudden figures being silhouettes instead of actual real people. Some flat backgrounds and some renders are backwards. For my thesis, I’ve departed from just myself and fit exploring identity and found family. I wanted to take a step back and go from the comfort of being surrounded by people to diving back into the anxieties I still have. Even though I have that sense of community. The uncertainty I have even when I’m surrounded by people and tackling that with the ecliptic mixing of styles best exemplifies the push and pull I go through constantly and jumping back and forth mentally. Avery M. Michel, "Prometheus Pyrphoros" , 2024, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 36 x 48 In Who are some of your biggest influences?  Definitely My friends. I love having friends who are creatives. I love meeting other creatives. I look at a lot of contemporary artists. I really love Pierre et Gilles, a French duo that does crazy photography, painting over canvas, and building huge elaborate sets that focus on pop culture and queer icons. They also do self-portraits of the two of them every now and then. They also play off the idea of sailor suits and making up this persona that they put on. Fabian Chairez, a Mexican painter that is up and coming and just had a show in Mexico City. He recontextualizes religious iconography through a queer lens. For instance one of his works depicts a priest blessing someone praying. But there’s a dove coming out of the priest’s robe , and it looks like the person being prayed over is giving head where the dove would be. Which would be a sexually explicit scene if it weren’t two fully clothed people and a glowing dove coming out of a robe. I’m intrigued by things like that. pushing what would be ancient and archaic. religious things that would damn queer people, being directly confronted with over-sexualizing queerness. I think that’s something I’ve been interested in, queer art-wise. Avery M. Michel, "Et tu Brute" , 2024, Acrylic and Oil on Canvas, 48 x 60 In How do you think your artistry will change in the future and what other things do you wish to talk about within your art?   I feel like I will always explore the self. Because we as people are ever-changing. The me yesterday is not the same as me today. I’m sure the me 10 years from now will not be able to stand the me talking right now. Which I’m fully fine with. I want to get into playing with style and doing more harsh transitions of style rather than blending things. I want to consume as much media as possible. pour the love of different kinds of art into my work as well as the love that people around me pour into me. I want to build upon the eclectic and the chaos of what I do, and that’s what makes me love it. Thank you for doing this Interview with me. Your work is great and makes me think about identity even more so. Just the way that you are able to compose so much variety and the balance and unbalance of just everything that is being seen is such an extraordinary thing to do and it’s valuable and it’s important. Thank you   Talking with Avery made it a pinnacle, comforting, conversation to have that explores identity, creating, and exploring the self. Striving for a vast self that reminisces the underlings of what can be depicted beneath all of us. It’s important to remember that we are all people living in a world that is filled with both hope and disarray. Living each day being who we are and who we want to be. Artists like Avery are continuing to grow, reflect and be unapologetically ever-changing. Avery is striving to break molds and transform the way their art is seen when manifesting the unlimitedness of what they can do. Find more from Avery @avemasmic

Viewing pictures from family albums and artistic creations is a significant aspect of how black people, like myself, see ourselves and others within our community. Bell Hooks, for example, spoke candidly about how the camera is portrayed for black people, the role of art in black culture, and the use of photography as a tool for visual resistance. Black people were able to begin telling their own stories thanks to cameras and artists like Asia Estelle (she/her). This led to a voyage of self-discovery to comprehend, challenge, and organize the many facets of the black experience. On campus, Asia and I chat in our photography building, Sabinal. An atmosphere that is filled with memories of our first encounters, our friendships, and our increased knowledge of photography and its various creative etiquette. Soon, we'll be departing to explore other facets of our lives. We talk about Asia's experience with photography, her thesis, Liminal Intimacies,  black identity, and more. How did photography become the outlet for you and when did it all start? Six years ago, in high school, I was a sophomore, and in that period, you needed certain electives. What was cool about my school is that we had a photography class and you could go up to Photo 4 and take AP classes. I was most interested in photography. I wasn’t as drawn to the idea of painting, drawing, or theater. I learned about the fundamentals of photography and the principals/elements of art and design, how a camera works, and how to use it. I was exposed to different types of cameras, like the pinhole. For an assignment, I made a pinhole camera out of a Pringles can. We had a makeshift darkroom that our teacher made for us, something that wasn’t provided, so that was really nice of him, and we were able to learn film and digital. I was also learning different processes of things like Photoshop. I was able to take that knowledge all the way to Photo 3 AP since I started a year late. I entered some competitions for Scholastic and Vase and got a couple of medals, which was really cool. I had no clue what I was going to do for college. So if I hadn’t taken that class, I definitely wouldn’t be here right now. So that’s how it all started. Curiosity, I’d say.  Do you find that when doing ceramics is there a compatibility with photography? Is the process different? I love this question. When I think about ceramics, I think of it in an entirely different way than photography. I do in the future want to combine the two mediums and make that my practice. With photography, not that I think it's necessarily easier, but I think my brain thinks a lot easier in 2D rather than 3D. When I started doing photography and having these assignments and trying to find ways to make them more creative, I opened my creative floodgates and started seeing pictures in my mind. I’m a very visual person, and I’d always enjoy watching TV, shows and films more than reading a book because I was able to see the visuals. With photography, seeing things in my mind, I was able to think of an idea, see it, and then work backwards to create the product, which is what I’ve always done. With ceramics, it was another class that I needed to fill an art elective and was interested in seeing what it was like. I just fell in love with it. With ceramics, I love it because of the things I know that it can and will teach me. I’ll be in the ceramics studio all day; I’ll forget to eat, I’ll forget to sleep, I’ll forget to go to the bathroom—not good things, haha, but I think it's important to have something in your life that allows your mind to feel free of everything: free of stress, responsibility, time, etc. It's very calming, meditative, and cathartic to be in the ceramics studio to make and do things with your hands. It taught me so many things, like patience, especially when throwing, and to embrace imperfection. You can’t always smooth out every single bump or lump in the clay; you can’t always have the perfect shape when throwing. The glaze might not always come out as you initially intended for it to. Those are the small things I love about ceramics. I think about it in a different way and how it teaches me things. I’ve also never wanted to do something all the time so badly, and it's definitely another passion of mine. I’m always wanting to make, or do something with ceramics. It's the only thing that has made me so frustrated, but I still want to do it every single day and not just cry and give up. Haha. Did I answer your question? Did I just go on a tangent about ceramics? Haha. No you're good, haha. How is your real life different from your art life? I think if I take myself out of the picture and think about my work objectively, I’d say it takes a certain amount of confidence to produce the images that I do and to say the things that I do and talk about important messages and cultural experiences and be completely honest and vulnerable about it. I don’t know if I have that confidence at all times in my personal life. I’m always going to be the first one to say that I’m black, and I’m proud. It's not necessarily that, and I feel there are other parts of my life that I lack confidence at times. Even the confidence to say that I am a good artist and that I make good work is something that I struggle with. I think every artist can relate to seeing the things you make and wondering if they are good or not and if people are going to respond to them, things like that. Making things in spite of the perspective of others. On another note, and to contradict myself, a lot of my personal self can be seen within my art. Because I do have photos of myself, my family, and the things I’ve experienced that are meaningful to me. All my work is very narrative-driven and very personal. My personal life and my art life are connected in some way and related. Art imitates life and vice versa, and my life is in my art. The artist Asia is a bit more confident than personal Asia and is kind of her protector, but subconsciously, they are also the same person. Maybe this means my art protects me in a way. In order to capture others, we often have to capture ourselves. Through all the blemishes, tired rhetoric and all the spaces in between. When you create an image in someone else’s light, is there a space for you to have self-reflection? When I’m photographing others, I try my best to detach what presumptions I have of them from the artwork. Because ultimately I don’t want to misconstrue how someone sees themselves or represent them in a way that they don’t feel is representative of themselves. I think very meticulously about how I frame others in my artworks and the different viewpoints or opinions that can be brought up from a viewer's perspective. I never want to make anyone look bad or make them look how they don’t want to look in an image of mine. Usually when I’m using other people in my work, it's for another purpose; it's usually to serve my own purpose as well. If I am to include other people, and it doesn’t feel close to the body of work, it definitely wouldn’t be right to represent them within everything. As far as self-reflection, taking these images of other people and knowing how I am when it comes to people, I always seem to put others first and think more critically about my actions and how they’re affecting others, and I can reflect on that and learn about how I treat myself and how I treat others. I can also think about how I represent myself in my images a bit more; I mean, I don’t really because I’m just snapping a photo. I don’t think about how others will see me in a photo. I could do that, and that can be a way to self-reflect. But ultimately I’m photographing someone else, and I don’t think there is much room for me to give input on how they want to look.  Do you think it is difficult to find value in yourself and who you’re meant to be when there are political systems that tell you, you don’t belong? I think it would be wrong to say no entirely. I personally don’t think I’ve let that affect my self-worth. Because I know I do belong, and I’ve always been proud of who I am and where I’ve come from. I’ve always been black and proud since I was a little girl. I’ve never felt like my existence was wrong. From a young age, you definitely know that you're different, being black, and looking different from other people, or having people talk to you differently, or having people associate you with different things that you have no connection to. From a young age I’ve always known that I was different; my parents have always taught me about the world, so I was prepared and braced for the impact. It didn’t really affect my self-worth or my value as a black woman. If anything, I knew that me being a black woman and despite all the things that I've been through would make me stronger. On another note, I do attribute some of my self-worth to productivity. If I’m not doing something or I’m dormant or taking time to rest and relax, I don’t see that as productive. I’ve seen it as being lazy, and I’ve always felt guilty about not doing something or being on the go. I think it's partly because of how I was raised to just do things, not half-ass things and to have that, “do it till it's done” kind of mindset. But then I grew up and realized the plight of a black woman. It’s expected of us to keep going and keep pushing on and have all things thrown at us, and we’re expected to juggle it all, at all times. So I think that’s what my self-worth is like. I have to be this go-go person all the time. I don’t know if I think about how society sees me; I mean, naturally, you do, but I don’t think I have issues with people seeing me as a black person because I've always been confident about that part of myself. Every now and then you have a little identity crisis, but I’m getting to a point now in my adulthood and in my blackness that I’m just confident and this is who I am and my identity is valid. The only time I had concerns with my blackness was because I’m lighter-skinned. Now, to me, I look in the mirror, and I can tell that I’m black, and you can tell that I’m black; you can look at my features, and you can look at my hair. My family has all the colors of the “black rainbow,” and to people who aren’t black, we look the same to anyone else. So the identity part is not necessary to feed into is what I’m learning. When I look at your work, I feel seen. Your art creates a foundation that speaks in a way of not only thinking about blackness, but discovers what you can create when a story doesn’t exist. How important is it for you that the audience finds a human experience within your work? I think ultimately that is all I’m searching for. In the creation of my thesis project, Liminal intimacies, I think I’m discovering that it is partly the black experience that I am searching for but the human experience as well. Because it is inevitable that there are going to be people who don’t understand my work. It's inevitable that there are going to be white people that view it and don’t get it. I don’t think there's anything wrong with catering to a specific audience, but I do think it is also special when people can see the humanity within your work or see the emotion of it although the work might “belong” to a certain community. Even just creating the semblance of empathy and igniting people's logical empathy can be really powerful if an artwork is able to do that. It’s just like  ‘well, I don’t come from this community, and I don’t know what this person is speaking about exactly, but I can relate because of a personal experience of mine, or something a friend has experienced.’ We all know somebody who knows somebody who’s been through this or gone through that. Because we love them, even though we can’t relate to them, we feel for them. Having that be in your work is really special and important, and I’m learning that encryption can be really cool and special, and I’ve been talking a lot about that with my professor. You can have anyone look at your work and feel that emotion, but it's kind of like an Easter egg, or have something in there that can be for your intended audience and they understand it and acknowledge it. So there’s a deeper understanding to envisioning yourself in this situation because you’ve lived this. That’s a really beautiful thing that I’m trying to explore: the emotions of being human and the additional, layered, and different emotions of being Black and the different ways that can look. Blackness for some, can be first thing they see, but for others the last thing they see. There’s no doubting or getting around the fact that blackness does exist in my work. I’m a black artist, and I photograph things that have happened to me and my experiences, so naturally it's going to be in the work. It doesn’t have to be about blackness, but about the cultural experiences of it and the emotion that anyone can feel, no matter what you look like or where you come from. We are both black artists utilizing different formats to present blackness. How does it feel seeing your work and my work coexisting together? I don’t remember if I’ve ever told you this or not, but us being the only two black women in our cohort and seeing the difference in our work, I think is really important for other people to see. That we can have the same or different views on blackness and represent them in two completely different ways. I think it furthers the fact that blackness is not a monolith. I think it's an amazing thing. Even when we look at other black artists’ work we see in class, or in books or through our own research, it's really cool to see how our people represent us in many different ways and it's special because it's just the thing, the black community. It's like the head nod in the grocery store: ‘Oh, this hair product doesn’t work.’ It's the commonality we all share, but everything looks different. I’ve for one not seen too many surrealist artists in photography, usually in painting, and coming to this program, you have some of the most magnificent work I’ve ever seen. It's so creative, diverse, and out of the box. It's not anything I’ve seen before, and you also put so much of yourself into your work. You say I do that, but you definitely are very meticulous and detailed. All of your work is symbolic of something, and you choose specific items to be representative of that thing, and I think that in itself is amazing and is a testament of who you are as a person. I love it. Your work can be a wake-up call and can make people think. You don’t want to have to tell everyone everything, and you just want to exist, so interpret it how you like. I’m the opposite of where I’m telling you everything because people aren’t listening to me, which I think both ways are interesting, but I’ve toned it down. That’s so nice (speechless) Talking to you about your process, just seeing your work is also helpful to me as an artist because we do have different ways we represent blackness and different messages to tell, but it's nice to know that we have each other's back and it's nice to have someone understand. Thank you so much, that’s so nice. I really appreciate you so much throughout this program. When I look at your work I do feel seen because I don’t think I could ever document something like that the way you have. It's very much special and unique toward you and I’m just viewing what you are looking at and I feel all of it. I love your work and it’s everything. Your thesis, Liminal Intimacies , serves as a reflection to other questions like, “Who am I?” and  “Who are we?”  Never ending experiences of being Black and the Black identity. The questioning desire needed to understand the why of it all. Does creating this body of work feel hard to grasp at times when you’re both creating and finalizing the work? Yes, I don’t think there is any world that exists where the answer could be no. I think it could be hard because all of these questions can be answered in different ways, no answer is definitive, and it's always a never-ending thing. As I evolve, so will blackness. So for me and everyone, it is always going to look different; it's always going to be changing as we change. My book never really has an ending in my mind because it can always keep going. Seeing it finalized, it doesn’t feel final. I used to think, ‘Oh, it needs to be this way; it needs to be like this, and everything had its order, and it would have a beginning and an ending’, but that’s not what it's about. I think in this part of my life, the art I’m making doesn’t have to end, which I thought it would. Being in this program for three years and having people say, "Oh, you make work about the same thing,” makes me wonder, do I though? Sure, maybe, whatever. It's been like a research project, and I thought I had to be finished with it once I left college because I thought if I continued to make the exact same thing, where does this lead me as an artist? Am I not going to be able to explore different things? I know I’m just coasting because this is something that I will proudly make work about in addition to other things. I think I’m just not as scared anymore as far as grasping the finality of the project; it doesn’t have to end. The book can have an ending, but it can have multiple volumes. You know, it's like I don’t want to skip the song; I want to pause it, and then whenever I’m ready again, I just push play. So acknowledging that has made everything easier, and I’m just done, for now. In my artist statement, I say I want the work to act as a paragraph in an essay. It has been hard to grasp, but also making this book has helped me come to those realizations. Before I started this two months ago, I had a completely different mindset on my work and about leaving this program. So through making it, I’m a bit more at ease with its ambiguity. In your work you create these open spaces and gaps that identity is intentional and can be non-transparent. You’re creating a language of your own that few will intentionally understand. Why do you think there is such calamity between understanding and misunderstanding when it comes to black artists? I think a very human thing is that you want to be understood. Everyone wants someone who understands them. I think being black, or a person or color, you have to come to the fact that people will not understand you, nor will they make efforts to try. Which can be a hard thing to come to terms with simply because of who you are and others not recognizing your existence. To understand how you are. It's frustrating to not be understood as a black person, because a lot of what our community does is tell people, and people just don’t want to listen. Because they don’t want to learn or understand. I would much rather have someone misunderstand it than misinterpret it and think I’m saying something that I’m not trying to say. From a black perspective, if we’re only talking about that aspect of my work, if someone doesn’t understand it, cool, but if someone is making assumptions based on things they don’t understand, I think that  would prompt me to be like, “Just ask me,” rather than just sitting in the ignorance or the misinterpretation. But that’s where, again speaking with my professor and working on this book has shown me that this misunderstanding can hold value, especially when talking about artwork and being a black artist. Because of things like Easter eggs and encryption, your work is going to find the audience and weed everyone else out. Someone misunderstanding your work or misinterpreting it and not wanting to listen and learn doesn’t need to be a viewer of your work anyway, and someone who will sit and be there and take the time to learn-- that’s how your audience is going to be created. So that misunderstanding and encryption hold value because you get to keep things for yourself, and the people who do want to know will find out and be taken into your world. As far as why there is so much calamity, I don’t know, but I’m trying to not let that bother me and to just let me and my work exist. In light of equality and known insensitivity in the art world towards black creators, do you think institutions and publications are more genuine now, or is there still a performativity being taken?  I try not to go into things thinking that if I’m denied something is because of who I am. I think I have hope that the world has changed. My parents are different in that sense, but I’m not oblivious to the fact that it does exist, and I do think there is still performativity happening in public places and institutions. I feel like inclusivity has become a trend and something not genuine and in the minds of others, feels obligatory. People are afraid that if they don’t include someone from a different demographic, they will be seen as a bad person or won’t support that community, which I don’t think is true, because context, time, and place are very situational. I try to go into things like “I’m Asia Estelle, I’m excellent, I’m great, all this stuff on my resume will prove it, etc.,” But I feel like it's always there. The thought that this could be happening for this reason, I typically don’t think about. Say I did get a position because of my blackness; I’m there, and I try to always not think of it as a negative thing because if I’m placed in a specific position, no matter what it is or how I got it, I will always do my best, do me, and I’m going to shine, and that will show more of who I am and my character versus the fact that I got here because of my skin color. I see both sides. Nobody wants to be pitted or put somewhere where they don’t belong, or if someone isn’t going to value me as an artist or as a person and they only want me there to check off a box. I feel like you can see through that majority of the time, but it's also up to your decision whether you want to be in that position. If you want to work to do something or boost yourself up or not. It's a hard thing. The best thing that I can do is to continue to be myself regardless if someone is performing and biasedly inviting me into a space or not. I will continue to be myself and bring what I have to the table. I’m not going to change who I am for someone else. Sometimes change can happen from being on the inside, but sometimes it just isn’t worth your time or energy if others aren’t going to fully accept you for who you are, and not what you look like-but hopefully, in an ideal world others will realize that what you look like and who you are can be synonymous, and be fully accepting of that as well. How do you imagine your future as an artist?   I have a lot of dreams. I see myself having solo shows and exhibitions in my name. For a long time, I wanted to be a creative director. I have good ideas that I’m confident in, and I think this is the perfect job title for me to combine the crazy organizational part of myself with the creative side. Someone who can come up with the ideas and work with other people and work with a team and get it done. It's a dream job, and I know I could soar doing it. It's a position you have to work your way up to. I know it takes a while to get there, but finding a company that I care about and invest in and working my way up through it would be how I could reach that goal. So that felt safe to me because I never thought I could be an exhibition artist. I would let the thought of money get to me because it isn’t the most stable source of income. But I think that is another thing I want to do, and because of who I am, I want to do it all, so it's never a subtraction but an addition. I’ll be a creative director, and I will have my work in shows. I think it would be really cool to be known. I’ve always seen that for myself and for my career, I want to be established and known in my field. I want others to come up with an idea and think that I would do it the best. The recognition of my art, my capability, and my vision is what I want more than anything. Again, ceramics has become a big part of my life too. One day I hope to combine the mediums and have shows that incorporate the two because that would be really cool. This is something long-term, but in the short-term, once I graduate, I’m going to go back to my ceramics job, and I want to start a ceramic business making things for fun and selling them to earn extra money. But it's also a way to get my art and name out there. It's a small start, but yeah, that’s what I see for myself. I also think about fashion and the crazy amount of outfits I’m going to wear. I think of styling my hair in different ways and wearing power suits. Very professional, haha. So yeah, that’s what I see for my future. Thank you so much Asia for talking with me and doing the photo shoot. You’re such a phenomenal person and artist and of great help to see and I feel so inspired by you. Thank you!  Talking with Asia helped me appreciate our time together and the general ease with which we could discuss our experiences as black women and black artists. Her art starts a conversation that looks within the complexities of visualizing a narrative and challenging photography. It showcases the importance of black visualization in photography of what is and isn’t said. As I gazed upon her, I saw a future of great accolades and acknowledgement of her dedication and forthcoming nature to continue to talk about these sentimental snapshots that represent her identity.  Find Asia's work here https://aaestelleart.wixsite.com/asiaestelle

Be it a light in a fleeting moment, through our reflection, a sense of doubt can come and go. We stare out to ourselves, the tension that builds to ponder life’s reminisce questions. To see the unspoken complexities and questioning of our reality. When we try to drift away the uncertainties, we find grief standing in our own reflection. Katie Hernandez (she/her) a multi media studio artist from Texas state University understands the value of how time is an anchor that lets us sets in the emotions that we want to hold sacred to which we then can learn who we are. I sit and chat with Katie in her sacred space, her bedroom. A colorful warm room filled with posters, art and little trinkets that make Katie an absolute delight. Discussing her accounts on her upcoming thesis, navigating art, the future and more. How are you doing? I feel good. Things have been looking up in terms of my thesis and the semester in general. I’m not sure if its because I’m entering my final semester in school, but I have a lot of hope for things to come. I mean there are some insecurities of finding a job or, wanting to be stable, but I still have this optimism. Overall things are going well both mentally in myself and my art practice. What is most essential to creating work in your space? I feel a lot more comfortable making artwork in my room than in a studio. A studio is more practical,but I have an easier time coming up with ideas and finishing a piece in my room. I feel freedom and no judgment. My room is is my favorite place so its only logical . How did you navigate towards becoming an artist ? That’s a good question hahaha. I’m not sure. I’ve been drawing for as along as I could remember. I grew up with Disney animated movies of their golden era. My mom, who’s a big movie person had so many movies on DVD and VHS. My sister and I would watch those movies all the time. Watching them made me realize that there is so much joy in something you make with your hands. I remember wanting to do that too. I remember getting the DVD covers and trying to redraw them. It took a lot of practice before I could actually recreate it and have it look good. I think from that point I wanted to learn how to do it on my own and I never stopped. I don’t know of the exact moment, but art has always been consistent through every stage of my life and it has grown with me. My grandpa, I believe is the only artist in my family that has a background in painting and drawing. He stopped doing it long before I was born and I never got to see that side of him. But he would have paint brushes in his office and I think a part of me, knowing that he didn’t do it anymore, I wanted to keep that going on. Is that good answer? Hahah There are no wrong answers haha you’re good Okay Art is a vast space that can center someones entire perspective of things that one never knew. I’m curious how does it feel to be in an institution learning about your art? I think being able to have the opportunity to go to school, specifically for art, that really changed how I saw myself as an artist. Because before college I never considered myself an artist. I always thought that it was nothing serious and just a hobby, even though I wanted to pursue a career in art. Which is weird in hindsight, haha. Coming to college and majoring in art is what really allowed me to find my confidence in my style. Its been a fun time overall, playing with different mediums and themes. I don’t think I could have gotten to the point of where I am within my art if I hadn’t gone to college for it. You know being able to see reactions and getting feedback and having other artists and professors see my work has been very beneficial to developing my style. I’m just grateful I had that opportunity. Looking at your older works such as “Can I Dream for a Few months More?” and “Home is With You” you have a very digestive style that illuminates hand crafted, structured stained delicacy. How did doing collage help with accumulating this space for further developing your ideas? I’m not sure when I got the idea to use cardboard, but I’m an emotional person that sees value in a lot of things that maybe not everyone else sees value in. Yes it is trash, but it still holds memories. The cardboard that I use in my pieces were boxes that I used when moving into my apartment in San Marcos for the first time. So it still holds weight that maybe not everyone knows when looking at my work and that adds value to it. With the first piece, “Can I Dream for a Few Months More?” that was when I first started utilizing collage in my work and it was a turning point for how I made everything after that. It was based on feeling and what felt right, rather than having something readily planned out. I think collage is a special medium. It’s a good way of illustrating feeling, or raw emotions that can be harder to capture in other mediums. Which is why I continue to work in this way and piece things together with different motifs, colors and textures. I think its evolved more since those pieces and I can’t wait to see what it develops into. You’re asking really good questions Hahahah For your thesis Sacred Uncertainty your work speaks about the notions of grief, self doubt, and questioning your faith. It made me ponder how much grief one has when you’re starting to lose faith in your religion. When did you start to feel that lose within yourself? I went to private school from pre-k to 4th grade and at that point in my life that was all I knew. I was unaware that people didn’t believe in the same things because everyone in my class believed in God and we knew all the Ten Commandments, the12 disciples and we would take tests on religion. I believe this made me very sheltered as a kid. I wasn’t aware of other mindsets, or other perspectives of people with different religions and people who didn’t believe in general. When we made the shift from private school to public school in 5th grade, it was eye opening to see how different the attitudes in the kids were. Everyone was more, not aggressive, but there was this notion of you can’t just talk to anyone anymore. Because in private school I talked to everyone in my class, but once I moved to public school I think that’s where my anxiety and shyness took over. Only as I’ve gotten older have I come across people with different mindsets and lifestyles. I also realized this religion is not the only one that exists. Throughout middle school and high school, I continued to rely on God, but I also doubted that mindset of “everything happens for a reason according to Gods plan.” I was angry; why does everything have to happen according to His plan? What if I wanted to do something on my own, or if I achieve something, why do I have to thank God? It was me who achieved the work. Another thing that changed my perspective was dealing with loss of family members. It goes back to that saying (everything happens for a reason) when someone’s time is up. I questioned it. Well why did you have to take them away now? Why at this time? I still hold on to some of that anger today; it’s not as prominent as it was back then, but it’s all those things on questioning authority when I’m the one living my life. There is guilt I feel for having those thoughts because I still rely heavily on my faith, go to church, and pray when I’m scared, or anxious. So it’s a weird relationship where I have uncertainty about things but I still rely on it. When you’re viewing your finished work as the artist is there this sense of relief you feel? Because you’re expressing work that is very vulnerable, but also relative to the audience. There is definitely a big relief. It’s a relief to not only finish the artwork, but also to have a weight lifted off your shoulders when you didn’t even know you had that weight to begin with. When I was first starting out, I didn't realize I was using my art as away of coping with all the thoughts of grief and religion. When I finally pieced together why I felt good after finishing my work, it was the missing puzzle piece that unlocked how I made work going forward. There is that relief in finishing and getting to show it to other people. One of my goals is to have people look at my work and relate to it. Because maybe they’re having the same thoughts and can find comfort in it. In whatever way they interpret it. I think connecting through art is a beautiful thing. How do you see your art evolving in the future? I see myself going bigger with the scale and showing how powerful it is. Similar to how religious and Renaissance paintings are these big monumental things. With what I’m talking about in my art and questioning my religion, it could be a cool contrast to have. I still believe in my religion and I have faith, but I’m also very set in the questions that I have about it. I think putting my art to that big of a scale would get that feeling across. Sure, you could read it in my artist statement, but seeing it visually is more important. I do want to keep experimenting with material, unconventional things, lost and found objects. I’ve had a lot of fun experimenting with different things. I never know what I’m gonna make, really, and I just kinda, how do I describe it… have a broad idea and then its just a matter of how I execute it and what that turns into. Well thank you so much Katie for sitting down and talking with me about your work No thank you, it felt really good to talk about it in depth, haha. Thank you for thinking of me. Well your work is so phenomenal and thought provoking that I needed to hear you say words… haha Haha haha To hear my thoughts about it ? To hear your thoughts about it Yeah thank you, and that’s always a nice feeling because that’s what I want. I want people to react to my art in whatever way that comes to them. To hear Katie’s thoughts and expressions about the concepts of things like grief, self-discovery, navigating art its imperative that we can all think of things that are sacred. This emotional roundabout journey through Katie has solidified herself with expressing her most vulnerable to the acknowledging of letting go and creating freely. Her art is pictorial to the way one thinks about their most human moments of self expression and a solace discovery. Find Katie's work here https://katieleigh.co/work