Art in progress: An inside look into an artist’s journey

Artists go through a process of concept, sketches and end product. Their artworks may appear complete, but in reality, they are works in progress. There’s always something to work on.
On Sunday, February 26, 2006, in the art studio on the ground level of Seton Hill University’s (SHU) Lynch Building, senior art therapy major Jessica Braccio talked about her works in Advanced 2-D Media. This four credit independent study required a minimum of 12 hours of work outside the classroom per week.


By Michael Diezmos,
Copy Editor/Photographer
Artists go through a process of concept, sketches and end product. Their artworks may appear complete, but in reality, they are works in progress. There’s always something to work on.
On Sunday, February 26, 2006, in the art studio on the ground level of Seton Hill University’s (SHU) Lynch Building, senior art therapy major Jessica Braccio talked about her works in Advanced 2-D Media. This four credit independent study required a minimum of 12 hours of work outside the classroom per week.
Braccio is under the tutelage of Phil Rostek, assistant professor of art. Rostek observed that most of his students� work tended to explore the nature of introverts. �The amount of information in the world is overwhelming,� he said. �Students counterbalance this by turning inward.�
Braccio explored the private world of her dreams and Carl Jung’s notion of quest and collective unconsciousness in her recent oil paintings, which were inspired by Franco Dragone’s show �Le Reve: A Small Collection of Imperfect Dreams.� Bradiccio’s art surrounded her. On top of her taberie, a splash of red and yellow muddied the glass palette and brushes of varying lengths filled a jar. Paint thinner fumes had spread throughout the room, and the air ventilator buzzed. She sat on a stool applying colors to her untitled painting of a figure which resembled a pre-conceived image of a devil.
�This is not therapy,� she said. �The subject matter is what I�m interested in… He (the devil image) is called the specter from �Le Reve.��

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Jessica Braccio, senior art therapy major, was �reminded of the dichotomy of living a dream and living through a nightmare� while working on her picture of the devil with sad eyes. Braccio is currently enrolled in Advanced 2-D Media, which requires a minimum of 12 hours per week of work outside the classroom.

According to Braccio, the image reminded her of the dichotomy of living a dream and living through a nightmare. Nothing was what it seemed in her picture of the devil with sad eyes.
�The dream motif symbolized my struggles and personal journey,� she said.
�I had a lot of growing up to do,� Braccio said. She credited SHU art faculty members Maureen Vissat and Nina Denninger for waking her up from the nightmares of passivity and confusion. �They told me to get real, and to be true to myself and others,� she said.
Students today, according to Vissat, are creating works �in tandem with contemporary art (such as) mixed media.�
Braccio used different mediums such as pen and ink, acrylic paints, tar, and spray paints. Growing up in Los Angeles, California, she was inspired by graffiti art. �I incorporate them (spray paints) in my sketches,� she said.
Throughout her years at SHU, Braccio learned to be receptive to constructive criticism. �I became open to different styles and to my own creativity and to art itself,� she said. �Art is my outlet, and I plan to help other people with it.�
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