Read Along with Carys Hazen’s Artist Talk
Hello. My name is Carys Hazen and I’m here to talk about art. When I’m coming up with ideas for my art, I am inspired by nature, animals, especially bunnies and also, what is around me. Sometimes I like to sit on the porch at my mom’s and draw what I see. Sometimes I like to do something like draw Mount Helena, but I decide to add a stream. I love to use my imagination. I like to listen to audiobooks while I’m drawing and sometimes I think about the story and wonder, “Huh, what would that thing look like drawn on a piece of paper? I could do that!”
I love coming to art classes because I learn how to draw things instead of figuring out how to do it on my own. I also have an art teacher, someone whose job is to teach me about art. I like that I can be with other people to make art, especially during Covid19. Some of the kids my parents knew before, but I hadn’t met them yet.
For this self portrait, called “Me, with Some Adjustments,” I did it by using a kind of sharp blade to scratch into a plexiglass plate. Then, I put ink on the plate and then wiped it off. Finally, I stamped the plate onto a piece of paper in a printing press. After it was dry, I added colorful ink that made it look more like me!
All of the shapes in the background of this piece of artwork, were made to show that I was saying something. The dots and scribbles on my apron were made because my apron had a lot of paint on it. And I wanted to show that I am an artist!
I really like this piece because it looks a lot like me, but in kind of an abstract way. Because of course, I don’t actually have weird spirals coming out of my head — or yellow hair. I also don’t have blue eyes! Like I said earlier, I like to make things look a little bit different than they actually are.
I picked the colors, yellow, red, blue and purple, because they were the closest I could find to the actual me. Purple is my favorite color and I used blue because it seemed like it was perfect for this print. I chose red because it matched what I had done for my lips and fit on my apron.
When I first made this self portrait, me and a few other artists thought I looked like I was a boss! Maybe because of the serious look on my face, but I’m sometimes the opposite of serious. And sometimes I’m very serious, like when I’m about to go tell my dad that my brother was being mean.
Thank you for listening. It would be great if you would buy some of my art because I am going to donate most of the money to small foundations in Helena.
I suppose I must go eat some chips. Aren’t you hungry too? That is the end of my artist talk.