In 2012, the haudenschildGarage established an annual commissioning and mentoring program for students from A Reason to Survive (ARTS). Over the course of three months, the Garage met with the young artists and challenged them to explore a new medium and unfamiliar subjects. Additionally, artists' bios and statements were developed as part of the process. The finished pieces were donated by the haudenschildGarage to the Ronald McDonald House.
We are proud to introduce the three finalists: Kyle Bowen, Hannah Bowen and Tashia Williams.
Kyle Bowen
Magic Flowers, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 24” x 36”
I recently painted some flowers that were very similar to this except that they were on a smaller sized canvas. I liked them so much that I wanted to make them on a bigger canvas. These are some pretty weird looking flowers, but they are weird in a good way. They came from my imagination. They look kind of glowing and magical to me. So I decided to give them a pretty basic title – Magic Flowers.
-Kyle Bowen
San Diego artist, Kyle Bowen, has been creating fine art for almost as long as he can remember. By the time he was eleven, several of his earliest watercolors has been published as greeting cards, gift bags and calendars. Overcoming multiple head trauma injuries, as well as childhood color blindness, Kyle continues to use his meticulous, color-filled drawing and painting style as a means of cognitive therapy. Currently, Kyle specializes in the creation of one-of-a-kind hand-painted objects, including Garden Rock Mandalas and large canvas paintings featuring original patterned designs. Kyle is an alumni of the Waldorf School, the Charter School of San Diego and the Abrams Art Studio. All have been instrumental in his artistic growth.
Tashia Williams
This piece reflects the transient yet perpetual nature of cycles and of pattern. Familiar shapes and desert imagery are abstracted in a way that is both poetic and experimental. Inspired by my camping trip in the Mojave desert this summer, this piece represents the gelling together of memories, fragments of space-time, the all-encompassing energy that binds existence and the infinite universes of possibility that exist between moments.
-Tashia Williams
In my artwork, I seek to explore the intangible. After experiencing a phase of nihilistic existential thinking in high school, I eventually arrived at more of a spiritual understanding of myself in relation to the cosmos. I made portraits centered around a sense of angst that I felt lingered in each individual’s psyche. Contrarily, my recent work has evolved in a way that my paintings depict beings in an enlightened or transformative state. I am interested in symbolism, color, pattern, geometry and fundamentally intangible aspects of cosmology.
-Tashia Williams
Hannah Bowen
Lucy in the Sky, 2012, acrylic on canvas, 40" x 30
From dreams come ideas
From ideas come stars
From stars come dreams
Stars that wonder
Stars that wander
Across the sky
Swirls of ether colored
Raindrops fall like watercolors
On my window
The trees dance like moonbeams
Upon the water
I move with them
Naked
Bathing in starlight
Drinking from the Milky Way
My footsteps are comets
Leaving blazing trails of fire
Sprinkled with cosmic dust
I float above a field
Kissing the earth
Like a lover on the verge of death
Everything I behold is there
Written on a single breath.
-Hannah Bowen
Hannah Bowen’s work seeks to depict everyday things from unusual and unique perspectives. Whether animals, household wares, or landscapes, she draws from personal experiences to articulate scenes of places she grew up in. Her interests straddle traditional media, technology, cuisine, society, and environmental issues as well as the science of the universe. Hannah comes from a family of eight siblings and a closely shared space where homeschooling eventually gave way to the Waldorf School and her newfound love for art and nature. Ironically, her public school experiences took care of the hard-lessoned life travels for which now her unique character emerges.
About A Reason To Survive
A Reason To Survive (ARTS) is a San Diego based nonprofit organization that believes that the visual, performing, and literary arts can literally transform lives – especially those of kids. We believe in the therapeutic powers of the arts, but we are not clinical art therapists. We use all art forms as a vehicle to create positive, long-lasting change in children and youth facing major life challenges – giving them not only a reason to survive – but to also thrive. Through ARTS’ various outreach initiatives in the community, it is our goal to bring the ARTS to Heal, Inspire, and Empower children who are suffering throughout San Diego.