When I was going through the stuff with my dad and thinking about terms like restraining order and domestic violence, I was really just searching for a way to define what I was going through. I didn't really understand what it meant to disown a parent or not want to have a parent in your life. Even the word parent was confusing to me because my father came into my life so late in my teen years.
Chelsea MartinMy artistic process involves pens, gesso, acrylic paint, and markers, all on vellum. I use a window painter's technique and paint on the backside of my image before I mess with the front.
Chelsea MartinI wanted each different Chelsea to be able to navigate her own world without having to also speak to a larger narrative.
Chelsea MartinI do think that people yearn for connection and intimacy, and that they're hard things to achieve.
Chelsea MartinI have hundreds of Word documents filled with pages of one-liners. If I begin to write a story, or if one of my thoughts leads to more than a couple paragraphs of writing, I'll go into these documents and pull out lines that I think would work with it.
Chelsea MartinThe thing about writing or making art is that I'm not thinking about that stuff while I'm doing it. Like the driver's ed kid, in retrospect I see that that was meaningful, and I felt close to him in that way, but at the time I just thought it was fun to draw, and that's all it was. I think that's what's weird about life and about making art. You have to talk about it later. I guess I should be prepared to talk about it now. That is why I'm here. But again, pass.
Chelsea Martin