Meet The Artists

Darin just wants to have fun, and feels happy when he makes art. He likes to paint and glue popsicle sticks together to make art. He likes painting best. He’s proud of what he does and he likes it. He likes all of the colors, and likes using all of them in his work. He begins his art with an idea, and he knows it is finished when he looks at it and enjoys it. He wants people to be proud of his work when they see it. He enjoys it.
Kelly is a good guy and he likes art. When Kelly makes art, he feels happy and it makes him feel good. He likes the way he draws and likes painting with a paintbrush best, but he also likes using all the other materials. His favorite color is blue, but he doesn’t use it a lot in his artwork- he likes working with other colors. When people see Kelly’s artwork, he wants them to say how wonderful it is- he always feels good when they say that.
Katie feels relaxed when doing art. Her favorite medium to use is watercolors. She just wants people to think of her art and be happy. Katie’s favorite thing about her art is that she finds it very relaxing and therapeutic. Her favorite kind of art is still life.
August is a fun, happy guy, who loves art. He enjoys painting and dancing best, but is always up for trying new things. He is a very productive artist, and can finish three or four pieces in a day.
Chris likes playing music. It’s his favorite kind of art. He feels happy when he’s making music. Chris also likes writing because he likes talking about his feelings. He likes his staff and learning new things from them. He can play “The Star-Spangled Banner” on his guitar. If people could enjoy his work, Chris says that would be awesome.
Jessica enjoys creating art while still staying clean!  She likes to paint, and enjoys using the colors blue and black in her work.  Jessica also enjoys using markers, crayons, and colored pencils.  Jessica likes to write poems, dancing, and listening to music.  Jessica brings a great sense of humor to City Center for the Arts!
Jon is fairly new to the whole artistic process, so all of this is pretty new and exciting for him.  When it comes to music, Jon believes that he is a drummer at heart.  He loves to play the bong o drums.  When it comes to being artistically creative, Jon generally doesn’t have an idea of how he wants the piece to be until he makes the first few lines and/or designs.  After that, he gets an idea of how he wants to make it look.  Jon is open to trying just about anything.  In his opinion, Jon usually doesn’t think that any of his work is truly done.  It is pretty much an ongoing process.  He mostly got into the arts because there’s really nothing else that he feels he can do.  He can’t explain it, but there’s something therapeutic and relaxing when he focuses in on what he is doing.  It’s almost like going to a different place.  Jon is a guy who is really into saying and doing stuff that have double meanings, so a lot of his artwork has more than one meaning to it.
Katie G. likes making art. She likes drawing, and really enjoys working with polymer clay. She likes using clay because of all the different colors. Katie feels good when she’s making art. She likes it!
Nicholas does art because it is what he likes to do.  He feels really happy when a piece is going the way that he wants.  He likes to do pieces about the things he thinks about—like superheroes and transformers.  Nicholas enjoys using charcoal, oil pastels, markers, and painting his pieces and he does not have a favorite medium.  His favorite color is blue and he likes to use it in his work.  He starts his pieces by drawing them with a pencil and then uses the other materials on top of the pencil.  He starts by looking at another picture and drawing from it, and sometimes he starts with a stick figure and works around it.  He knows that a piece is down when he finishes the background and the details.  When Nicholas is drawing or painting, he feels “not bored.”
Nina enjoys skiing, computers, and art.  She describes herself as a funny, social butterfly.  Nina creates art pieces using paint, collage, clay, oil pastels, chalk pastels, and charcoal, because creating abstract pieces is fun and getting messy is even more fun!  Nina always feels excited when starting a new piece.  Nina says that she never knows for a fact that a piece is done.  She does prefer when her piece is almost completely filled with color.  Nina wants people to feel happy when they look at her images.
Jessi  loves music! She is quite the actress and acting is in her blood. She has been able to appear in a few community theater productions with her family, and enjoys every opportunity to perform. Jessie also enjoys painting and drawing, and makes some wonderfully unique pieces.
Jonathan  likes making art because it’s awesome! His brother Nathan told him about art and he has been doing art for 16 years. He likes making art of all sorts of things like hamsters and Pokemon. Jon’s favorite color is green, he likes using crayons, and he likes making drawings of Batman. Jon also likes painting peace signs, and wants people to feel happy when they see his artwork. He likes to draw Pikachu, Raichu, and Pichu. All three of them are electric types. Gotta catch ‘em all! Him and Pikachu are best friends. Jon likes coming to this program because he learns about art games. He enjoys the Hapkido class, and his favorite things to do here are drawing and painting.
Karen is an accomplished musician who loves playing the piano!  She loves to sing and dance to all types of music.  Karen has been attending classes in the visual arts recently and has enjoyed experimenting with paint mixing and various collage techniques.
Nikki  likes drawing best. She feels happy when she’s drawing. She really loves Lord of the Rings and enjoys drawing the characters from that, especially Sam Gamgee. When people see Nikki’s artwork, she wants them to think of Hobbits. She also enjoys dancing, and likes musical theater.
Tim likes the pictures. He feels just fine when making art. He likes drawing with pencil best, and likes drawing diesels and trucks. He likes painting classes best, and likes that his artwork is good. When people see Tim’s art, he wants them to say is artwork is cool. Artwork is fine.
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Shane likes art because it’s fun. He loves painting and movies. When he’s making art he feels happy and funny. He likes painting and watercolors best. He also likes dancing, but sometimes it pops his hip. When people see Shane’s artwork, he wants them to think it’s really nice. He likes it- it’s pretty.
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​Walter likes doing art because it’s fun and all that and is fun doing all kinds of cool stuff like making designs and houses and different stuff. He feels happy in his heart when making art because he’s doing new things. He likes making mod podge paintings and painting designs in all the different colors. Walter knows that a piece is done when he looks at it and it looks really nice and awesome. Walter wants people to say he did a good job painting on art stuff when they see his work.
​Rose says that art helps her to make friends, and it feels good to see the finished product. Making art helps her feel good and busy, instead of sitting on the couch watching TV. Best of all, she likes the fun she has while doing it. She hopes that people who see her work will want to buy it!
Tyler  says art gives him a “chance to be a hand grenade in society, but you know, in a non-violent way.” He especially loves playing the guitar because, he says, “I can literally be whatever I wanna be. I can play whatever I want from Greenday to Metallica…and someone else will enjoy it.” Tyler also enjoys drawing with pastels because they’re messy, but not as messy as paint. His favorite subject is clowns because he really identifies with them. To quote the artist when referring to his work: “I mean, look at it! It’s awesome!”
​Nic  likes art because it’s fun and it’s a good way to meet with friends. He enjoys drawing and painting, often choosing subjects such as hieroglyphics, pyramids, kangaroos, and wolves. Purple and red are colors he often uses in his paintings. He says he likes drawing pyramid stuff because it’s actually kind of cool, adding, “there’s an Egyptian place in Las Vegas that I love!”  According to Nic, the most important thing about art is when you start drawing and you’re like, “what should I draw?” Nic says that art inspires him because it makes him feel good.
​Matt  describes his work as abstract, using primarily long, curvy lines. He uses mono- and dichromatic color schemes so that his paintings are more focused on one or two emotions. Matt’s art is inspired by the magical elements of nature: fire, water, wind, earth, and corvettes. He also gains inspiration from his mom, who is an amateur photographer, a professional face painter, and a balloon twister. In addition to painting, Matt also enjoys drawing, modeling clay, and whittling, and has been creating art for about 30 years. When Matt is not making art, he loves to read the works of his favorite authors: Dean Koonz, Stephen King, Edgar Allen Poe, and H.P. Lovecraft. Depending on the piece of artwork, Matt wants the viewers to feel a sense of calm, excitement, or anger. He says, “I want them to feel something.”
​Linda enjoys painting with acrylics, especially blue and yellow. She feels good when she makes art and wants to get good at it. Her favorite part of the process is finishing a piece. Before coming to the arts center, she spent a lot of time coloring in a coloring book of cats. Linda’s favorite movie is Blue Hawaii, and is a fan of Elvis Presley and scary movies. Her favorite food is pizza with pepperoni, mushrooms, and black olives. Linda says is would be really cool to go to Hawaii and go horseback riding, and she would also go on the boats, if they have any boats. Linda was born and raised in Salt Lake City.
​Cyd loves painting and drawing, using a variety of colors in her work, including blue, light blue, green, yellow, orange, black, red, and brown. She is still exploring her favorite subjects, but has an interest in abandoned houses, relating to her love of Fright Nights and scary movies. Cyd says she loves painting because it makes her feel better, and wants viewers to understand how she feels when they see her work. She really enjoys taking classes at the arts center, like comics and yoga, because they “make her feel good inside her heart.” Other interests include swimming, going to movies, sharing birthday cupcakes, having her own pets, going outside, hot tubbing, clubbing, and cleaning the tables after lunch.
Robin
What do you do at the arts center?
Here. (Makes painting motion on paper)
What are your favorite colors?
Brown and yellow.
How do you feel when you come here?
Happy. Everybody happy. (Fist bump)
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​Matt’s oldest brother is an artist who does oil paintings, and he likes art because his brother is an artist. He likes Fall colors and using colored pencils, and his favorite color to use is bright yellow. His artwork makes him calm down and relax, and just have a fun time being here with his friends and family. Doing art makes him feel happy and more comfortable.