Today we’d like to introduce you to Natara Bjaranson.
Natara, please kick things off for us by telling us about yourself and your journey so far.
Twenty-two years ago I was created by two artists that fell in love in the city of Seattle. Their passion for art was painted and hung on the walls of every home we lived, with their passion came madness and years later my family’s history has lead me to be inspired. I can remember as early as five-years old knowing who I was and who I was going to be when I grew up. I told my mother with confidence “I am going to be an artist when I grow up!” She smiled and told me I could not go to an art institute for two reasons: they are expensive and too competitive by nature. Stubborn and in love with the idea of progress and growth at 5 years old I ignored what she said, and hoped it would be different.
While in high school, my mother suggested I only take electives required to graduate. However, my high school Avid teacher, Blaze Newman, always said, “Be involved and you will feel involved.”
I found myself wandering around the halls, staring at paintings that covered the buildings of my high school, feeling small in search of sanctuary. I stumbled upon a flyer, taped to the ground, with the words “Artists for a Cause,” and under the scuffs of footprints it read, “Come join us for lunch in room 60.” Motivated to join, I quickly became involved in my school’s art department outside of the classroom. I spent 4 years as the Vice President and in this time I discovered like-minded people with the same excitement of art, education and good food.
I submitted every college application as “undeclared” with the warnings and the negative connotations of a “starving artist” haunting me. From 2008-2015 my mother and I received welfare from the state, our financial instability demanded I be the first to get a college degree and I knew that I would need financial aid to make it happen. In my mind I was determined to be practical, focus on the academics, and get the degree that would get me a job. In my mind this was how to end the struggle.
The pressure to have a stable job and support myself has been overwhelming, pulling me closer to one of the few things that brings me relief, my art. It was my sophomore year of college when I transferred to Mira Costa Community College after the death of my best friend, my Grandma Sonja Bjaranson. I let my scholarships slip through the cracks, I missed the placement tests, and watched the general education courses fill up. This led me to Leslie Nemour and her beginners Oil Painting class. I was eighteen and intimidated, because I had never painted anything but the walls of our apartments. I was inspired by the class and became more driven by each project. Painting was my only motivation to get up, go to school, and work to pay the bills. It kept me going. I immersed myself into the art program at MiraCosta.
A year ago I stopped listening to the statistics and the warnings of my mother drilled into my head and signed up for every art course mentally and physically possible. It took me until last semester to remember I knew who I was and who I always have been. In the counseling office of Fall 2017 I reminded myself of this and became an Art Major.
I have been enrolled at MiraCosta for 3 years and in that time I have become an active member of MiraCosta’s Fine Art Club, interned as a teaching assistant in the art department, curated exhibitions at the Blue Gate and Kruglak galleries here on campus, and have taken every oil painting class allowed. The faculty and students at MiraCosta have encouraged me to be vibrant, bold, and determined to absorb all and any education I can, in the craft of my art. I recently graduated with my associates’ degree in art Spring 2018 from MiraCosta College in Oceanside, and I will continue for my BA in Fine Arts as a double major at San Diego State University in Painting and Printmaking as well as Art History. During my time at SDSU I plan to obtain a single subject credential and keep a job to help pay my way through getting my MA while joining a community to explore my passion. My long term goal is to be involved in higher education as practicing professional artist, showing my work and creating a business plan for my brand and getting a website up and running with my paintings available as prints.
Can you give our readers some background on your art?
It’s common to hear people say, “I create art to express myself,” then I think, “Why do I create art?”
I don’t have an answer, the older I get the more I understand, I hardly have any answers. I believe that’s why I gravitate towards the silence and the cathartic energy I get while immersed in a painting. My hands help me physically navigate through the pain and the stories I don’t know how to tell or the words I cannot. When I was younger, I wanted to be both an author and an artist, and I never lost the lust for either. Together the lifelong love affair has translated into an Ekphrastic poetic experience. My art is a diary of my egos, full of sentiment, grief, contradictions, and every decision or question I have wrestled with.
My interests lean towards the physical build of oil paint and charcoal. I’m fascinated with the process of working through my hands to understand the story I’m telling. My life has felt like phases of violet: unsettled, stressed, with moments of clarity when I’m lost in my work.
My hope is that my viewers can take a break from the rest of the world with me, find solace in my narratives I paint and leave with a sense of passion.
What responsibility, if any, do you think artists have to use their art to help alleviate problems faced by others? Has your art been affected by issues you’ve concerned about?
I believe the role of an artist has always been one in the same as musicians and poets to commentate/communicate their feelings of the world around us, the child within us, and get it out on some sort of canvas for others to relate to. I believe society’s view of artist have started to shift back to the idea of philosophy and that we are a breed of value with a purpose for creation and innovation. Social awareness and classic stigmas heavily influence my work, but I am more inspired by the history of the world and its trend to repeat itself I find fascinating.
What’s the best way for someone to check out your work and provide support?
My most current account is my Instagram @Littlems.Seuss where close to all my work is displayed and I do have a link in my bio to my email where people can contact me for commissions and mural work, or if they have any interest in buying a painting they see. Like I said before I plan to have a website up of all my paintings available for prints/posters for sale by November of this year. People can support me by following my Instagram where updates of my work are shown; other ways to support are creating new connections between other artists, generating local opportunities to showcase my work, but most of all I love collaborations with different kinds of artists, photographers, musicians, poets.
Contact Info:
- Address: 29th Street San Diego
- Phone: 760 4507331
- Email: Natarabb@gmail.com
- Instagram: littlems.seuss
- Other: https://natarabrieonna.wordpress.com
Image Credit:
Elizabeth Bautista
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