Hello, I'm Natalie Garcia. I consider myself as an artist and I've liked to create ever since I was younger and in middle school. Seeing my mom's old drawings from when she went to highschool, learning that she used to love to draw and missed doing art. I'm from a small nobody town and I'm a first generation fine arts major at tamuk. Working towards graduating with my dream degree. I'm a beginner ceramist and I work with charcoal, both messy mediums but very personal. I dream of sharing my creations and art with the world and to be able to share what I'm learning from my peers with my own workshops. To teach my opinion on what art is about and to share that being able to create is a beautiful vulnerability.

I feel like I've loved creating art ever since I discovered my mother's old drawings from her high school days. She told me how much she loved it and what it was to create. She expressed that it was freeing, but she sadly doesn't have time to draw anymore, ever since she had to take on a job to help her family. To me, doing studio arts makes me feel closer to her younger self and she was right; creating does feel like freedom. It means I can be passionate and share my thoughts with the world through my medium of choice, where I aim to refine my techniques successfully and create meaningful pieces. This personal connection is what motivates my pursuit of art. Building on this inspiration, this is why I want to study art: to further my techniques in mediums such as charcoal and clay for self-expression and complex ideas, to learn how to show emotion through artwork. I also hope to learn how to observe other people's creations with deeper thought and give my own interpretations. When it comes to my personal work, I feel passionate about being an artist because there are many opportunities in the world to be creative freely, especially as the world progresses and women are able to enter the fine arts field and be taken seriously. I often remind myself that without woman before, I wouldn't be able to be in college today studying art. It feels very personal to me that I can have the freedom and the option to take this path, which I'm thankful for because art gives me a sense of purpose. Expression in art is a beautiful way to show feelings, emotions, and personal thoughts. To even be able to share it with the world gives it such vulnerability and raw feelings that I just feel passionate about the fact that I can even do that as an artist. Creating art has so much power. For my process of creating, my preferred mediums, charcoal and clay, are hands on and personal. Though both being messy mediums, they produce rewarding results. Traditional mediums help me feel closer to what I create, because each stroke or movement in my work is my personal touch, for it was made by my hands and fingerprints. Most of my art reflects my life, beliefs, and things I love. I like to think that my passion for creating is very transparent in my pieces.