Meet Darlene
Darlene
Darlene, a 20 year old in the midst of her gap year, has attended YAC since high school. After studying abroad for one year in Indonesia, she returned back to Monterey County and to YAC, which she describes as “welcoming, accessible and inspiring”. At YAC she is able to work in all mediums, without assignments and never feels apologetic for loving art. In addition to YAC, she enjoys contra dancing, trying new things, talking to new people and traveling in all interpretations.Darlene first remembers being passionate about art when as a 1st grader she attended a charter school that embraces creativity where she would draw everyday and give the drawings to her teachers and classmates. By High School she was a teachers assistant and spent avid time painting. When her Senior Art Show came, she presented twenty plus pieces and was honored when friends and teachers were impressed. Presently, her favorite medium is watercolor pencils, mixed media and acrylic.Darlene’s work, self-described as “colorful, innocent and free flowing” often focuses on people. She likes to capture their unique features through exaggerating freckles, wrinkles, scars, etc. Her attention to these details is because of a belief that trademarks “make us who we are.” Behind this focus is the inspiration that Darlene gathers from imagination, uniqueness, and exploration of socio-economic and cultural differences. She also loves to capture nature with her “own interpretation of reality” and believes that she makes her best art when she is channeling her emotions into creative energy.She would love to do scratch prints with ink, screen-printing and more portraiture. Darlene dreams of returning to Indonesia to draw people that she meets on the street while they tell stories in their native tongue. She would love to continue this activity throughout the world. Additionally, she dreams of creating a documentary to showcase, and therefore, preserve Javanese traditional arts such as batik, before it and other forms of native arts are lost to globalization. She also intends to be happy.See Darlene’s work here: miwavon.blogspot.com
