Early in February, senior Grace Hong was distinguished with a Silver Medal in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards for her multimedia piece “Form of Body and Mind.” According to the competition’s website, the merit is given to only 1% of 340,000 submissions.  I sat down to interview Grace on the procedures behind her art. 

Q: What gives you inspiration?

A:  I get the most inspiration from peers and what I see around me. When people give me feedback on my art, that’s when I feel the most inspired because I get all these new ideas to apply to my art.

Q: Tell me more about your creative process.

A: I always try to make sure that I’m not limiting myself, because when I don’t limit myself, it usually ends up being more of a creative piece than I intended it to be. And then, if I know there’s nothing else I could do more, that’s when I consider my piece done. Maybe in the future, when my creativity grows, I can say, “Oh, maybe I could add this in and keep going.”

Q: Do you have a favorite medium?

A: I used to really love working with colored pencils because I really liked adding a lot of detail to my art, and colored pencils allowed me that. But I started to explore more of the other mediums, and now I really just love making mixed media pieces along with other materials like string, resin and fabric.

Q: You told me earlier that you get the most inspiration from your peers. What’s something someone said that really stuck with you? 

A: I told my private art teacher I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do in the future because I thought I wasn’t creative enough, and she told me how being creative wasn’t about coming up with these crazy ideas but really being able to keep going with my art. Someone who isn’t creative can’t sit for four hours straight just creating because they don’t know which way to take their art. But she said I’m capable of doing it.

Q: Do you plan to pursue art in the future? And was there a turning point in your life where you decided you want to pursue art as a career?

A: In the future, I want to major in art and design. It happened kind of gradually. I tried a lot of new things in my childhood, but art was the only thing that stuck with me throughout my whole path as a student. My interest in art just kept growing, so I guess that’s how I knew I wanted to pursue this in the future.