Art isn’t just a pretty picture anymore. The Scope highlights these Saxon artists that are redefining what it means to create something beautiful.
Bre Della Corna:
A plain white pair of Van shoes stare at senior Bre Della Corna. She picks up her colored pens and begins to draw on them. Within a few hours, the shoes are completely covered in colorful doodles and are ready to be sold.
Since August 2012, Della Corna has operated a small business, selling hand customized shoes. She was inspired to start the business when her friends began begging her for her creations. “I love art, clothes and shoes,” said Della Corna, who gets ideas from Pinterest.
The process begins when Della Corna meets with her customer to discuss color scheme and other specifics. Then she retrieves the shoes, which can be almost any plain canvas shoe. After that, she does some sketching and gets to work. For about four hours, she decorates the shoes with intricate designs using Sharpies.
The final touch is spraying the shoes with waterproof spray. After finishing the shoes, Della Corna posts pictures of her work on Facebook and Instagram in an attempt to obtain new customers.
Her price includes an average of $40 for the shoes and $40 for her labor and designs.. When she is paid, she deposits half of the money into savings and the other into a jar for personal use.
Della Corna believes that she has benefited from the experience by getting a look into the entrepreneurial world. “It is a great process to go through on your own because it gets you thinking about supply and demand and the business world,” said Della Corna.
Emily Olmsted:
The curtain opens, the strut begins, the cameras flash, the model twirls and the audience erupts. This was the atmosphere at Langley’s fashion show that inspired junior Emily Olmsted to pursue an on-the-side fashion designer business.
Olmsted spruces up shirts with her own personal fashion techniques. Using generic white shirts that come in packs, Olmsted shreds the shirt using scissors and a complex folding system.
After shredding, she weaves it back together in a new way with each shirt. While wearing a shirt of her original design, her friends became intrigued and persuaded her to open a small business. She usually charges about $25 per shirt. “I use the money to buy more shirts and to design more,” said Olmsted.
Many of her friends quickly became her customers. She also advertises her works by posting pictures of all her designs on Facebook. While Olmsted is committed to her small business, she realizes it is not her main focus right now. “I can control how much I do. I can multitask easily since I operate the small business, which allows me to focus on school,” Olmsted said.
Although her business is not her first priority right now she is thrilled to be able develop her designing and love of fashion.
Pia Hansen:
For Pia Hansen, the best part of waking up is Folgers on her paintbrush. Hansen uses instant coffee as a medium for her unique pieces of art.
Saxon Scope: What is your favorite medium?
Pia Hansen: Instant coffee is my favorite medium. It works the same way as watercolor but due to its thicker properties it is possible to remove it again from the paper. The charm of working with something unique makes it special to me.
Saxon Scope: Are you planning on making a career out of your art?
Pia Hansen: My career path has gone from fine arts to Environmental Design, all thanks to my very supportive, but realistic dad. I wonder sometimes if it is because of laziness that I do not want to invest myself in something more concrete, but I am pretty happy with doing what I do.
Saxon Scope: Any artist quirks?
Pia Hansen: When it comes to art, I like the bizarre and sometimes even the unnerving. If something pulls at our mental strings, we will stand there and study the artwork. My favorite piece of art is that which features something grotesque, but so beautifully crafted that I want to look at it but doing so gives me goose bumps.
Saxon Scope: Who do you look up to in the art world and why?
Pia Hansen: I don’t know who the man was but he had a small shack with “paintings” at a fair that I went to. He took pinecones and shells, covered them in tar, and used a small red crab claw as the head in order to make small vultures. He would mount them from a branch, finely twirled and merged into the canvas. I wish I had bought it.