BLUE
Raquel Mullins shares that working with blue has been an avenue in discovering her "artistic voice." Identifying with the color's role as representative of one's "throat chakra" and in her own journey in expression and healing, Mullins uses blue in a significant way in her drawings of past homes as metaphors for the body and settings for stories. What might it look like for us to explore the potential and power of our own voices within our personal spaces, especially in this time where many of us are spending more time at home.
Supplies:
A Blue medium of choice (crayon, pencil. ink, etc)
A regular pencil or pen (preferably not blue)
Blank sheet of paper or something on which to color
Ruler or straight edge
Steps:
First, with your regular pencil/pen and ruler, draw a "floor plan" of your home. Don't worry about it being exact in measurement, just focus on drawing the spaces that represent each room, including the kitchen, closet, etc. If your home has 2 or more floors, you can draw a plan for each floor.
Make sure to label or note the rooms in your plan if you need to.
Take your blue medium and begin to color the space of the floor plan for the space in which you're currently sitting. When you color, let your marks represent how comfortable you are in expressing your voice in that specific room or space. What actions or aspects affect this dynamic? The volume of your voice? Instruments in the room? Other people or objects? When finished with one room, go to the next and color that corresponding space to represent how comfortable you feel with your voice in that space. Continue this process until you've finished coloring your plans.
After your floor plan is fully colored, sit with it and the possible shades or dynamics of blue. In what rooms does your voice appear the strongest or most authentic? What about the opposite? What might be the things about these spaces that empower, stifle, or haunt your voice?
Clip from Raquel’s visit:
About Raquel:
Raquel Mullins (b. 1989) is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Chattanooga, TN. Her drawings, installations, paintings, writing, artist books and other creative works are inspired by an uncanny intertwining of dreams, memories, and fantasy. Her work confronts questions of contemporary domestic life by archiving autobiographical experience. She illuminates wonder by highlighting small, everyday objects, spaces, and phenomena. Like the bowerbird, Raquel treats her artistic practice as a ritual act of nesting, collecting, archiving, mending, and homemaking in response to a personal history of instability. Memories of dwelling spaces serve as a rich breeding ground for her investigation of the meaning of home and belonging in the 21st century, and the role of architecture and collected objects as a locus of memory and identity.
Mullins received a BS in Art Education from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2012 and an MFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2018. She taught elementary and middle school art for five years in the Chattanooga area. She now exhibits her work nationally and is an adjunct faculty member in the art department at UTC and Southern Adventist University.
@raquelmullinsart on IG
https://raquelmullins.com/
Resources:
Earlier Event: May 8
In the Studio with Mike, Josiah, and Klypi
Later Event: June 5