We look at faces every day. There are familiar faces that we can picture every detail of, but there are also fleeting faces that we will only see once. Faces are ever-changing, with every new expression revealing something about the person they represent. Junior Maya Huling uses their art to stop time and capture some of these faces that stare back at the viewer.
Huling began making art when they were in elementary school. They are currently in Drawing Intensive and Huling has taken a few art classes including Comics 101 and Art Studio. Huling’s art emerges from a mix of inspiration spanning from friends to music. These inspirations come together to create pieces full of passion.
Huling said they sometimes use art to express their emotions abstractly. For example, after watching a painful video about the effects of the conflict in Gaza, Huling decided to make a painting about what they saw.
“I saw this video that I had a really big emotional response to. It was about this kid who’s seven months old and he’s in Rafa. And he’s really sick, and he’s dying. And it was a video of him and his mom,” Huling said. “So I started working on this piece that’s a woman holding a wilted flower and then there’s a watering can to the side that’s empty.”
Huling said they also find inspiration in other visual artists such as Do-Ho Suh who creates life-sized fabric sculptures of homes. Visual arts and Career and Tech-ed teacher Anamary Levasseur taught Huling and said she noticed how observant Huling was when it came to studying other artists.
“[Maya] always had just wonderful insights into the different art that we were looking at and just cool connections and always very interested,” Levasseur said. It’s very clear that Maya is an artist, the capital ‘A’ Artist.”
Outside of visual art, Huling said they are inspired by music. Huling plays guitar in a band with their friends and they combine art and music in their pieces featuring queer artists.
“I wish I could write songs because it’s just such an amazing expression. But as of now I’m definitely not a songwriter, but I like to bring the two together in a way because I feel like I know a bit more what I’m doing with art,” Huling said.
One of Huling’s friends, junior Eliza Kamholz, is also an artist. Kamholz said that their shared passion for art has brought them closer together.
“I would say my art’s pretty personal. So being able to share that with someone is really important to me. I think it’s helpful for Maya to have their art shown to a smaller audience before it’s widely displayed,” Kamholz said.
Kamholz said that seeing Huling’s artistic process has changed how she thinks about her process. Kamholz typically spends weeks or months on a piece, while Huling often finishes their paintings in one or two nights.
“I remember them telling me once, ‘It seems like you spend a lot more time perfecting things than I do,’” Kamholz said. “And that really made me think. It definitely pushed me towards trying to be more spontaneous and impulsive with art-making and trying to finish things in one night and just be more fluid with it.”
Levasseur said that Huling has confidence in themself while creating their art and tends to trust the artistic process.
“They understand that when you start out, that you’re doing sketching or kind of early work, and then as it’s going on and becoming more and more and more, it starts to take more form. Not all students are comfortable with that, Maya kind of always was. They just understood that at some point it’s gonna pull together,” Levasseur said.
Huling said that their favorite aspect of art is the voice that it gives to people and the connections it forms.
“My favorite friendships are with people who talk about stuff that’s really important to them and deep stuff. Just talking about how you think and feel about the world. And I think that’s a beautiful way of connecting, and that doesn’t happen a lot in most relationships,” Huling said. “But in art and music, you really get to hear from someone in something they might not have talked about, but in something they’re creating.”
