Christina Mrozik is an artist from Michigan who uses pen, ink, marker, and watercolor to compose semi-surreal visions of nature that are very different from the usual paintings of serene landscapes and friendly animals.
She is currently based in Portland, Oregon and enjoys working with arts education nonprofit groups.
She is currently being shown at Antler Gallery until June 26th.
In this episode, Christina discusses:
-How there is no clear-cut path for artists and creative people, and how each one needs to walk their own path.
-How art acts as a mirror in which you can learn more about yourself from what you create.
-The importance of pursuing your curiosities.
-Embracing the idea that you will learn more than you will be able to create.
-How everyone has a finite capacity, and it is just a matter of utilizing that capacity over and over so that it can grow and so that you can grow.
-Looking back to work you made very early in life and seeing the core that has existed throughout your life.
-Her advice to young people to explore any genre or style that piques their interest and to continue to create things that they enjoy or think they might enjoy.
-How she makes most of her money doing commercial illustration for various companies, and how she balances that with her personal work.
-How she meets and has conversations with her new ideas.
-The fact that people curate their social media to appear as if a creative life is easy, but how most people struggle to make it work and have much less time than it appears.
-Finding ways to be creative in everyday life.
-How she is unafraid of white paper and approaches her pieces without a plan.
-Pieces that sometimes hang on her wall for years until something else will inspire and inform her to complete it.
-How her understanding comes first from movement, then imagery, and then language.
-How learning to draw feels like learning to play an instrument whereas working with clay feels like singing.
–Her show at Antler Gallery and her feelings about the pieces in it.
Christina’s Final Push will remind you to be kind to yourself as you battle through your creative journey!
Quotes:
“I feel like art acts as a mirror. It is revealing the parts that are inside of you already and you’re just putting them on paper. Then you have something to look at that informs you about your inner world. So it’s this back and forth process.”
“We’re constantly dividing ourselves into categories and I think what I’m really trying to do through my art is figure out how to merge all those things back together into one complex being rather than to divide all those out into digestible pieces.”
“I think something every artist should do, no matter what stage they are at in their life, is pull out everything that they’ve made as far back as they can go and have everything out at the same time.”
“Your art should be a reflection of yourself and the only reason it should stay the same is if you do. If you’re on a path of growing and shifting, your work should grow and shift with you. You should feel like you have permission to allow it to change.”
“Make sure you get lost in something that you really like and feels really good, because if you’re hating what you’re making because you think it’s what you should be doing, you’re doing yourself a double disservice.”
“If I really want to have a good creative day, there will just be no noise anywhere and it will just come find me.”
“There are so many times where I don’t really have a clear idea at all, I just know that I’m feeling creative. I’ll just sit down at a piece of paper and see what’s in there.”
“For me, so much of the making is the thinking itself. They’re not always ideas that have been hashed out and put together. They are the hashing out.”
“It’s like the actual process of moving my hand is what helps my brain think or understand.”
Links mentioned:
Christina Mrozik at Antler Gallery
Connect with Christina:
Website / Facebook / Instagram / Tumblr / Twitter
On the next episode:
Yellena James : Website / Instagram
Join the discussion in the Facebook group!
