Rebecca Young

Part 1

My name is Rebecca Young, and I am a 2-D art major. I am a transfer student to Whitworth after having been away from school for 14 years. I am a wife, a mother, and as of recently, a homeschool teacher! My plan is to be a secondary school art teacher and I have recently been accepted into Whitworth’s Master’s in Teaching program, which I will begin this summer. My time at Whitworth, so far, has been rewarding beyond expectation, I have been challenged and have grown in ways I didn’t know I could, artistically and otherwise, and I am looking forward to the next adventure!

*Unfortunate Circumstances*, 2019, oil on canvas, 36×24 inches

Each artwork I make is practice. They are a challenge that I give myself to overcome and each piece contributes to an overall body of work in progress. These two paintings in particular were, for me, the beginning of open-ended prompts as opposed to working from observation. Painting a negative life experience or a figure in a space forced me to come up with ideas that naturally evolved using variations of concept, color, and composition. I then had to determine how to reconcile and articulate the concepts as clearly as possible as I worked through the process. I think of my art as an exercise used to strengthen my physical and mental connections and that each piece is a practice in patience, expression, as well as technique and the improvement of skills. These two paintings represent an important steppingstone in my progress, and each one has given me the opportunity to do a better job of solving the next problem.