Meet the Interns!

Hello! We're the interns: Daniella Napolitano and Maria Victa, we are Gretchen's interns and we just wanted to share a little bit about us by answering this set of questions.

1.) Is there anything quirky/ interesting that you want people to know?

2.) Weirdest/funniest thing that happened to you while you were doing art?

3.) Preferred medium and why?

4.) Where do you draw inspiration from?

5.) Who is currently your favorite artist and why?

Daniella Napolitano:

1.) I am a twin and my younger brother and sister are also twins. No, I am not identical but both my twin sister and I have never seen Forrest Gump and don’t really care if we ever do. I just don’t get why people like that movie.

2.) I once made a giant purple octopus chair for a sculpture class. It was for a “self-portrait chair” project.  The strangest critic I’ve ever encountered was a six-year-old girl who visited our undergrad open studio. I overheard her saying she hated my paintings and drawings because I painted animals my cat killed and drew figure studies of naked people. She said, and I quote, “Daddy, what did she do to those animals? I hate it! I hate her. Why are those people naked? That’s dumb. I don’t like it.” I caused a little girl to hate me with my art.

3.) Currently, I like working with pen and ink. I love the versatility of the medium; you can make really delicate lines or bold graphic ones. I also like how portable pens are as compared to other mediums.

4.) I draw inspiration from animals and nature. My interest in nature started at an early age when I habitually watched Animal Planet and nature documentaries. Everything about the natural world fascinates me from cute animals to more morbid subjects. I’m also really fascinated in how people interact with and think they interact with “nature” in general.

5.) It took a lot of narrowing down but two of my favorite artists are William Kentridge and Kara Walker. I like the way they address difficult topics such as race and apartheid and create a narrative. I admire Kentridge’s beautiful charcoal animations and Walker’s bold installations.

Maria Victa:

1.) I am a huge nerd. Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings? Yeah, all those book are super awesome. I'm, also a huge fan of John Green, who writes for young adults and conveniently enough, calls his fans: nerdfighters. But it's not just books, I watch nerdy shows like Doctor Who and Sherlock and Downton Abbey.

2.) The weirdest thing that happened to me was when I was painting a picture for my friend and my mom was under the impression I was painting a picture of Jesus, when really, it was a picture of Ned

Stark from Game of Thrones.

3.) My preferred medium is probably graphite. I like the ease of shading opposed to when you have to use acrylic or oil.

4.) I draw most of my information mainly from the books I read. I get the ideas from text as short as a sentence to even the whole entire book. I like to bring a visual aspect that goes along with reading.

5.) My favorite artist right now would have to be Andy Warhol and his pop art style. I'm going through this minimalism phase right now, and seeing his painting kind of influences the way I break do something (think Marilyn Monroe)

Left: Daniella, Center: Printing Press, Right: Maria