Maria Soboleva
Arts Scholar
Final Reflection: Program Synthesis
Through Arts Scholars I was able to collaborate with others who held diverse artistic perspectives, interests, and abilities. These interactions helped me grow as an artist and a consumer of art. One example was participating in the Fandango field trip. Sinhue Padilla-Isunza and Andrea Thome taught us what a fandango is and how to write one. It is a large, unique combination of arts I had never done before: Writing poetic lyrics of stressed seventh syllables, singing, instruments and a fast-paced dance! The fandango has no specific origin and comes from many cultures, intersected between Native American, African and Spanish roots. The fandango song is usually used to express a longing for home, which I had never really explored before in my own artistic ventures. Sinhue was an amazing guitar player and I was blown away at his expertise playing. As a novice guitar player, it was very inspiring. I enjoyed learning about this very distinctive art from experts and exploring new artistic views and skills.
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Through the Arts Scholars program my perception of art has been redefined and influenced. One example was participating in Lauren Welch’s capstone project. Her project was a podcast that explored art’s meaning and why it matters. It was my first time on a podcast when she interviewed me. We discussed how differently art affected us, in life and in our majors. By participating in this podcast, I helped create a new kind of art that I had never been a part of. Our conversation redefined my view of art as we discussed the need to expand the definition of art to include more unique art forms. I also participated in Katie Reese’s capstone project. She presented art about mass incarceration by incarcerated artists. I created art in response, and I was happy to participate in the art exchange. I was reminded how important art truly is to communicate human experiences.
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By participating in a creative writing workshop my first year in the program, I was able to deepen my love for creative writing and see the process behind developing stories. I also loved the poetry workshop I was a part of in my second year because I was able to try a new kind of writing and expand my creative abilities. I used what I learned in creative writing about storytelling in my final poetry portfolio. I chose to write three short memories as stories that explained my father’s personality.
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My capstone project allowed me to explore a completely new kind of art and effectively communicate my process in many ways. I learned how to succinctly present my project orally in my first and second look presentations. I explained my creative process in written form through different categories such as journaling and iterations. I was able to capture my cathartic process in a completely new way: through video and by filming the destruction of my artwork.
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My capstone project was rooted in my anxiety and using art therapy to help process my emotions. Throughout Arts Scholars we have discussed how art can help communicate and validate experiences, thus building community. In my third week of sophomore year, we had a guest speaker Adriana Monsalve lead a discussion about art during COVID-19. We were in deep quarantine with social injustice rampant in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Many students expressed hopelessness and anger, and we talked about how art can help express our frustration with the injustice, support the BLM movement and bring a community together. I used my capstone project to transform my anxiety into something positive through art.
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During my time in Arts Scholars, I changed my major from Early Childhood Education to Art Education. I decided I wanted to continue creating and pursue a career related to art because I am passionate about it. I will be taking art classes during junior year and then senior year I will be student teaching. Whatever I do in the future, I will continue to inform others of the importance of art, in history, in culture, for storytelling and for ourselves. I have learned through Arts Scholars how art impacts everyone and builds community.
1st Year Reflection
I was pleasantly surprised by how nice the ArtsFest website turned out. It is easy to navigate and very aesthetically pleasing. All of the workshops are organized and quickly explained in the exhibition statements and I can quickly find my friends on the drop-down menu of artists’ and look at their work. It was sad that we did not get to have the ArtsFest at school and actually go to an event. I think it would have been so much fun and I would’ve gone with my other art scholars’ friends and we could have showed each other our work. I definitely would’ve been more motivated to finish my project if the exhibition was at UMD instead of being an exhibition online. ArtsFest was unfortunately just another fun experience that got ruined by COVID-19.
I have not done creative writing since I was in middle school, so I was nervous and excited to do the Writing Workshop. It was my first choice because I saw this workshop as an opportunity to try something new. I was never a big writer, but I loved reading growing up and I have always done visual arts like drawing and painting. Eva was a wonderful workshop leader and was able to breakdown the idea of writing into manageable chunks. Plus the fact that she has written a whole novel is amazing and very inspiring to us novices. She was very supportive and interested in my idea for my short story. I was actually very nervous and lost when it came to actually start writing. One thing that really helped me start which Eva suggested I do was answering a character questionnaire for my main character. Thinking about simple things like the main character’s last name, favorite color, parents, friends, etc, made it much easier to start writing because I had built a foundation for her personality and she was more life-like rather than an abstract idea. Unfortunately, because I never decided on an ending I wasn’t very happy with how my short story ended. I also had a hard time writing a historical piece because I do not know much about life and how people spoke in the 60s. So I found a book which was a collection of interviews with women from the 60s and 70s who lived in maternity houses like my main character. I read the whole book and used some of the stories as inspiration to what happens to my character.
When Lauren and I were living together at UMD we were always updating each other about how our workshops were coming along and we bounced ideas off of each other for our final projects. I heard about her idea to take pictures of her sisters’ long before before she did it, and I heard about Saxon’s idea to take pictures of his teachers, and others’ ideas as well. We talked about art and gave each other advice and it was a friendly fun enviornment where we were all trying new things and learning. Everyone I talked to were very interested in my idea for a short story, since most of them had never heard of maternity houses and how they functioned back in the day. I told Lauren and Elena how I was struggling with the ending of my story, and they helped me brainstorm ideas that ranged from horror to romcom. The program really did foster a community feeling and I became friends with so many other art scholars. In fact, I made such good friends that I will be living with Jenna, Jackie and Lauren next year!
Over the past two months I quarantined with my neighbor and friend Paulina who is an avid baker. She has introduced me to the world of baking cakes, cookies and more. I have baked my first layered cake, decorated my first cake with piping tools, and made chocolate dipped strawberries. I have learned how to make different kinds of icings, mousse, different kinds of brownies and more. Baking is a new art I have never been interested in until now. It is actually quite challenging since recipes often come out differently than expected. I love plating desserts and making the decorations since it’s more about the visual aspect of the food. Also, baking is so fun because you get a treat at the end of it! This is definitely a new interest of mine and maybe I can explore it more in the Arts program next year.