The simple fact is that I love animals. I was born into a home that liked animals and grew up with them throughout my entire life. Once I was old enough, I started volunteering my time to care for birds at a rehab center. Eventually all of the jobs I had as a teen and young adult revolved around animal care. I was also enormously influenced by my 2nd grade teacher who took us on hikes, built a birdfeeder outside our classroom window and made a community garden with us. She taught us to respect nature and animals. I also love learning, whether on my own or in school. This combination eventually lead me to become vegan for ethical reasons. That’s basically the short and quick version.
My love for animals isn’t the kind of love that I melt over every baby animal that crosses my path. I respect them as beings that value their lives and have their own desires and free will. I don’t see any difference between eating a dog and eating a cow for instance but most people in this country would because it’s a social norm.
My two skills have been the ability to work with animals and make things decently as an artist. I decided to pursue art instead of becoming a veterinary doctor because I didn’t want to participate in a severely flawed system that views animals as objects. I wanted to do something to advocate for animals and to help make change. It’s a very lofty goal to want change a cultural view and I know I’ll never achieve it en masse. But I am contributing and that’s better than not doing any thing at all. If enough people have that attitude, change will slowly but surely happen.
So, I make animals to bring awareness to their suffering and plight. Most people have never seen the animals that they consume or use for their by-products (of milk and eggs and skin, etc). I want to bring the presence of those animals into people’s awareness. Granted they are only representations of those animals but these substitutions still promote thought about the animal. I try to create the animal with a certain emotional expression via the face and through it’s gesture that will evoke questioning and empathy.
My work is fairly literal. I make a calf and I am referring to a calf. If it looks like it is in pain then that is how it is responding to its circumstance. I want to convey what that calf is feeling and what might be the cause of its suffering. I’m trying to work out what my method of working is, whether I’m a formalist, metaphorical, conceptual or narrative artist. I’m thinking I work conceptually or narratively. I’m leaning towards narrative because the animal’s life is the most important thing about my work. I want their stories told and their emotions shared and empathically experienced. But I need their presence to do that, I can’t convey their suffering as concept by itself because then it looses its advocacy.
ETA: After doing some research on other artists that fit into each of those categories, I’m discovering that I am probably more of a conceptual artist. We’ll see what my professor says tomorrow I suppose.
