Artivism
all right um
before i get started i thought maybe
just um do a quick breathing exercise
what do you think
i’m seeing some nods okay good i know i
need one
okay um so you don’t have to close your
eyes you can if you want to soften your
gaze
get settled in your seat
take a deep breath in
hold it and then let it out slowly
okay very good you can open your eyes
now think of um just
well it gets you know you’re sitting in
a chair
obviously um maybe a few of you are
standing
the reason i say this is i want you to
notice that
notice how you’re sitting in the seat
notice how your body is connected
to the chair notice how your feet
possibly are
touching the floor okay notice how the
air is touching your fingers
you know your face just notice
how you are in space right now
okay perfect all right
how are we feeling now oh
we have a great from over here allow
that to
spread throughout the room okay
excellent
all right so my name is naya uh nyah
gabriel i use they them pronouns
and i um as says here i’m an artist
an artist and an activist
it’s a little term that some folks use i
like it so i
use it and basically
i started painting uh three years ago
um sometimes i sort of leave it like
that and let people figure out why i
might have started three years ago
ah very nice i like that i like that
november 2016 all right those who didn’t
get it the first time got it the second
time there you go
very nice all right um so i needed a
little self-care if you will
for a variety of reasons and
i am a scientist by training
i um my day job i work at hampshire
college as a lab manager in the sciences
um i went to mount holyoke college and
uh
yeah yeah and uh and
so you know i i i needed something else
i needed something
um that took me out of my head and you
know that i didn’t have any preconceived
notions about i did not
i i have not been trained in the arts uh
in the
creative arts so to speak um didn’t take
any art classes
um but you know i had this this uh
a much larger bin than this of craft
supplies
in the attic um so i pulled it out and
there were a bunch of things in there
um crocheting supplies and whatnot and
including paints
acrylic paints and you know a couple of
canvases
and for some reason i just started
painting um
and for whatever reason that inner
critic
uh didn’t show up i don’t know why it
just
whatever it just did we don’t question
it
we just say okay fair enough
um and so
it’s interesting all these talks there’s
a lot of resonances
with my own experience with my own
journey
and i’ve i’ve been noticing that you
know about identity discovery
for example and creative resilience
and creating the path as you walk it
whoa it’s it’s it’s nerve-wracking
but beautiful at the same time that’s
how i think about it
i literally feel like you know i take a
step into the great unknown
and then suddenly there’s a path for me
ready to
keep walking um and that’s what is
that’s what it’s felt
like as i’ve kept painting um because i
i do this
now for three years uh and it’s it’s
become a thing you know people
respond to it and i i you know have
exhibits and all that
um creative resilience in fact is my
what i call it’s a multimodal project
multimodal because
it involves
creative engagement opportunities uh
involves
exhibitions uh facilitated dialogues
about wellness um and and also
i suppose live performance live painting
performances
yep so
as far as the the live painting so these
are two canvas panels
um they’re basically pieces of cardboard
with canvas on them
um and i try and use recycled materials
these are not so that’s a bad example
but
it’s just easier for right now so
basically what i’m going to do
first is i’m going to take
well let me explain first of all i don’t
typically mix my colors i just sort of
go with the colors as they come
and i paint intuitively
which basically means i just go with
what
works for me at the time what sort of
speaks to me
so basically what i’m doing here is i’m
just adding this is brilliant blue which
happens to be
my favorite one of my favorite colors uh
onto the canvas here real quick
and now i
i sometimes i use brushes brushes are
pretty standard right
but most of the time i don’t most of the
time i use
various different things i’ve used you
know
well this this for example is a it’s a
old
health insurance card
i don’t know this it seemed appropriate
so right now what i’m just going to do
is just scrape the paint along the
canvas
can everyone see that yeah okay great
uh so as you can see it sort of spreads
the paint out
and now i’m sure
that i could get better coverage if i
spent more time on this but
you get the general idea and
getting full coverage is actually not
the idea
the idea is to get a base
of color
upon which i’m going to add other colors
okay so that’s one and i’m very quickly
going to do
the other one because there are going to
be two
um because this whole process is a
it’s i hesitate because i
it’s kind of printmaking but it’s
definitely not traditional as you can
tell because i don’t have a press
but it is because i am going to
and you’ll see why in a minute um
now
let’s see okay so the one thing that i
like to do
is i like to experiment okay so this
particular technique that i’m going to
show you
it came just you know because i was
playing around
with materials i was playing around with
colors and this is what i came up with
okay now
all right we’re gonna put that in there
all right so the next step
uh is basically to start adding colors
um so basically these are the colors
that i grabbed
this morning um i did not plan it out
uh as that’s just i was going to i was
like
it’s got to be perfect then i was like
but that’s not how i work
i i just don’t it’s going to be wrong so
i just grabbed whatever
felt right so this here is quinacridone
magenta another one of my favorite
colors
and so basically i just add the color
as it comes out is there a
reason a rhyme or whatever that phrase
is
uh no yes and no
um i kind of sort of know how it’s going
to turn out and i kind of don’t
um so i work with it
and sort of play around i add the colors
kind of randomly but also not
so basically what’s going to happen is
we’re going to have different forms
shapes
how’s how’s everybody doing in terms of
being able to see what i’m doing
yeah okay all right so i’ve got two
colors on here now
um
the one i just added was
cadmium yellow medium hue if you’re
keeping track
this is cadmium red uh deep hue
there are so many colors i
when i started out i didn’t have you
know a huge budget
for paint uh and canvases and whatnot so
you know that certainly pushed me to use
recycled materials
and pushed me to keep a very limited
palette
which is part of what informed my
process
in fact and has continued to inform my
process because
it’s what works i also have
i also have another limited resource
which is time
so that also creates
um part of my process
is to make things as quick as possible
so that one was dioxazine purple now
that color entered my
repertoire if you will very recently
thanks to a friend a new friend who is
here somewhere
lauren hi how you doing uh and this one
is light green permanent
okay and that’s going to be the last one
i believe i probably forgot something
but you know what doesn’t matter okay
perfect actually no
i forgot the most important titanium
white come on now
has anyone ever seen bob ross gotta have
the titanium white
all right we’re gonna add some glops of
titanium white all right
good now i’m done
okay all right so
i imagine you can guess what i’m gonna
do next right yeah okay
all right so this is what it looks like
now
all right um now of course i could just
leave it like this right i mean this is
interesting enough in and of itself i
agree
um you like i’m putting words in your
mouth all right
and it would it would dry much like this
the the the shapes would flatten out a
bit
unless i used a thicker paint but you
know yeah it is cool
but what i’m going to do instead of
course as
you are all very intelligent you can
figure out that i’m going to press these
two panels together
and i usually have a roller and that’s
the semi
press print making part of it but i
forgot to bring the roller so you know
it is what it is
i’m going to press the two panels
together
like so now as i do this
part of it where i sort of squish the
paint together
very technical term yeah
um i’ll just tell you that
one of the reasons why i
sort of mix i like to sort of combine
art and wellness
you know in my practice is because i use
my own lived experiences
with invisible disabilities and
neurodiversity and
other things to sort of bring awareness
to all of that um
and basically just tell people look art
you know is healing art
is life changing it has been for me
it’s life-saving in fact um
and you know audrey lord has this whole
quote um
basically talking about how wellness
self-care um
and not the you know putting mass on
your face that you know
facial masks that kind of thing but but
actual wellness like
actual taking care of oneself um
how it’s it’s a radical political act
right
and taking care of our communities is a
radical political act that
is activism okay and so for me
creating art is wellness for me
uh and for others because i share it
with others i teach others and i
do make art with others um so art is
healing
and it’s it’s a key to healing ourselves
it’s
key to healing our communities and it’s
the key to our liberation
okay so that’s that’s why i do this and
that’s why i will continue to do it
and all right i think this is ready
peel these apart
and there they are
all right so this is the one on the
right side and this is the one on the
left side
see yeah and they are slightly different
yeah it’s a lot of fun and sometimes
i will um sometimes i will
add to in fact often what i will do is
do
two panels like so and then add to
one in a different way than i add to the
other okay um
and sometimes you know i’ll add
more paint so that the because you can i
don’t know if you can tell but there is
some blending that’s happened here
between the dioxazine purple and the
titanium white
in this area here um so that’s that’s
the kind of
that’s the only color blending that i
tend to usually do
is the kind that happens directly on the
material the the surface that i’m
working with
and the kind of surfaces that i use um i
use a lot of recycled wood nowadays
because i really love working on wood um
and i’ve worked on actual carp like just
straight up cardboard
you know from boxes and whatnot um
and and i’ve also recycled canvases from
other
you know other projects or or student uh
artwork that kind of thing
um and you know so
the up the opportunities are pretty vast
at least i find them to be um and like i
said i’m trained as a scientist
so experimentation is you know it’s it’s
a thing
with me you know um there’s
there’s a photo i suppose i’m supposed
to be embarrassed by it but i’m not
um it’s a photo of me as a baby and i
you know
you know photos of babies right and um
and i’m sitting there
with a uh a calculator and i i think i’m
like taking it apart right and so
that is sort of the beginnings of me
experimenting and playing
you know i hand me some materials and
i’ll figure out a way to turn it into
something else
and so you know this is just one
technique that i’ve come up with like i
have
you know another one where i mix
acrylics with
um with inks and it creates
this these these interesting cracking
patterns on the
on the surface of the canvas and it’s so
much fun
and this this technique the one of the
main reasons i love it so much is this
veining pattern
that creates i don’t know how well you
can see it from there um but these these
where the texture pops out and it
creates this almost
it sometimes it looks like leaves you
know and when i when i
uh added the paint onto the surface i
let it drip sometimes and i did that on
purpose so that it could
come out looking like leaves especially
the green
um yeah i do that so and
you know anything that sort of mimics
nature
natural sort of forms is just really
exciting to me
um and so that’s that sort of informs
a lot about the way that i’ll put paint
onto the surface
and the and the techniques that that
speak to me the techniques that that
really excite me
um and so i will play with
you know you know there was last this
past summer
i’ve discovered that there was this
entryway i was
painting and um i was able to use this
this studio and
the entryway of the studio got really
hot because of the way the sun was
coming in
and so i would set my paintings there to
dry
knowing that they were basically baking
in the sun
and that was part of that was an
intentional part of the process because
it caused
you know caused certain ways that the
paint dried
was different from if i hadn’t done it
that way
um and so just you know just different
things like that and
and again like i said i don’t have a i
don’t have a whole lot of time to do
these things i usually do them on my
lunch break
or you know right before i go to you
know go home from work
after work or you know on the weekends
right um
and so it the the experimentation
happens very quickly it’s kind of like
oh what can i do
really quickly you know with whatever is
at hand
um and i like i really like using
you know kitchen materials you know
utensils and things like this that are
have been sitting around um not that you
know
are going to be going back to the
kitchen obviously
just to clarify
but uh yeah so that’s that’s kind of
that’s me