This website shows my HTML agility: it implements blog features and categories without the power of Wordpress. It has clean lines, stark contrast, and dramatic impact that all convey the mood of the magazine. I stopped using this site in order to create one with an edgier appearance.
Meet Kelly Murphy. A little girl with burgundy hair that speaks of “Mermacorns” that you could easily imagine standing with her converses pointed inward. She’s a Drawing and Painting major at KSU, and she’s just discovered what she’s doing with her life.
A sophomore at KSU, Kelly’s favorite medium is oil paint, with its vivid pigments and extensive drying time, allowing her to work on one area for an extended period of time and still be able to control it. She speaks of magical “blue glazes,” a blend of Liquin and Ultramarine blue that has the potential to make “pretty much anything amazing,” even the fabric that she can’t stand to paint in any still life. According to Kelly, something that can make even her fabric not suck puts a tear in her eye.
“Painting, for me, is a physical medium. If I make a mistake, that’s my own problem. I can’t just Apple+Z it away. I think it makes it that much more real. No matter how perfect a piece of digital art of, say, a mermacorn in space [a unique blend of mermaid and unicorn], it will never measure up to the character of a painting. You feel it, you smell it, you get it on your hands, and it’s an all-around sensory experience.” When Kelly paints, she is oblivious to everything around her. In one instance, she recalls a vase shattering on the floor and being immersed enough that she didn’t even notice.
Amidst a series of painting classes, Kelly appreciates the laid-back teaching style of KSU-raised painting professor Edward Smucygz, and describes the moment she realized that he had faith in her. During a difficult project when Smucygz noticed her struggle, she promised that she can compensate with her drawing skills, to which he replied, “You’re good at painting too. Just do it.” and walked away. This hands-off approach left her lost at first, but eventually it gave her faith enough to work confidently without outside reassurance: “If he’s not saying anything to me, I must be doing something right.”
Kelly’s personality and style of painting is one of randomness, of experimentation. “I really don’t make much sense. Even Smucygz told me I was an interesting child once. I think I draw from my environment.” Kelly works in a pharmacy and says that her peers are a kind of family from whom she is inspired, and love her for who she is. Whether she gets a new piercing or makes up outrageous lyrics to the radio, her coworkers support her colorful personality.
Elena, a friend and fellow employee of Kelly’s, says that Kelly shares her painting lifestyle with everybody at work and makes her proud: “She always brings her work, and she is very good. She’s very excited about it and talks about it all the time.”
According to Kelly, she began painting with the fear of messing up a clean, white canvas, but has recently found paint’s forgiving quality, allowing her to conquer her fears both while painting and in her own life. ”It’s layers. I can cover that shit up. It’s not the end of the world. And that’s the same with life, you know? You make mistakes, but that’s not what people are going to remember you by. You always have a chance to redefine yourself. “
At various points in the semester, Kelly wrote on the white-board, “I have no lines, only colors.” Identifying her fears on the canvas has enabled Kelly to start living a carefree lifestyle of spontaneity without worry or boundaries. She dyes her hair purple on a whim or gets a body piercing in an attempt to gain more life experiences that will ultimately show through in her artwork.
This emerging artist, with her openminded and untamed spirit, is living life to the fullest while painting and otherwise. She is in love with the newly compact TALON Monthly and wants it to be known that in addition to painting, she has a passion for straightening shelves for hours at work.