The Works of Art by Lacey Thompson & Natalie Smith

Meet the Artists:

Lacey Thompson

Hello, my name is Larissa Thompson. I am a young Catholic artist from West Michigan. I was raised in a small town in the farmland of East Michigan. My love of both the arts and nature have been a part of me since I was a small child, and have continued to grow and develop over the years. I have accomplished, through my pass ion and studies, an Associates Degree in both Art, and Fine Art, as well as a Certificate of Design from Mott Community College. I am currently further pursuing this love of art as a student at Kendall College of Art and Design, where I will be receiving my Bachelors, in Fine Art Illustration, in December of this year.

In my illustrations I focus on the beauty in the world around us. So often we get caught up in our life with the social or economic issues of today that we tend to forget or overlook the beauty that exists around us. I wish to take a step back from the busy ugly parts of the world and to capture the little beautiful parts. It’s these small things, such as the vivid colors of a sunset, the playful nature of animals, a single flower in a field, or just the results of the first harvest’s pickings on the table, that often get overlooked. Yet these are the things that can bring the most joy and beauty into our lives. Through my art, I want to capture and replicate these wonderful little things, so that I may share them with others who may then also experience the emotions embedded in them.

Nature plays a prominent role in my art. I love animals and find it fascinating how the textures and colors are so diverse yet harmonious in nature. My artwork displays a wide range of mediums; anything from pencil drawings, ink, and watercolor paintings, to digital work. I am al-ways trying to find the best medium to represent my subject. Most of my work, however, con-sists of watercolors and paintings. I have a passion for watercolors and find it easiest to portray my subjects through this medium. Although the medium may change, the style is always consistent. Showing detail, reality and a naturalist style; I also like to alter subtle things in order to better illustrate emotions or characteristics. For example, by exaggerating the length of a swallow’s tail feathers, its graceful elegance in flight is better shown.

Through my art I find a looking-glass to see the beauties of the world, a way of taking a step back in order to see and appreciate. Life is too short to hurry through, without taking the time for the small things. I hope that my illustrations helps others find this looking-glass, so they also may see and appreciate these small beauties of life.

Natalie Smith

My art comes from where I live and where I’ve gone. Living in Colorado, I grew up with mountains and plains. There aren’t trees to encroach upon the horizon and I can see forever. I grew accustomed to the comfort of the color of the sky and 300 days of sunshine a year. However, when I first saw cyan blue tropical water, I fell in love. For all of Colorado’s charms, bodies of water are not a common feature to my landlocked state. That color of water was absolutely magical in my mind and is almost always present in my paintings. When I was younger, my family went on road trips, trekking across the US every summer to different National Parks. I grew up on a steady visual diet of the earth’s most spectacular vistas from arches to geysers to canyons and sand dunes. I ex perienced a constant wonder at the world and memories of that go into my paintings. I was most heavily influenced by a semester studying abroad in Rome and a month in Paris. I was inspired by the cities, the architecture, and the art I was able to experience up close and personal in both the Eternal City and the City of Light. Not only do each city possess unparalleled art collections, but there is artistry in the arrangement of the cobblestones and the statues and fountains that populate the piazzas. My art comes from observation and experience serving as a record for experiences I do not wish to forget.

Every woman is a mosaic is a series based on a concept in genetics that refers to the fact females consist of a mixture of two kinds of cells with different functional chromosomes. In contrast to males who have one X and one Y chromosome, women have two X chromosomes. Each cell contains both X’s, but one X must be inactive in each cell. The mother’s X may be active in one cell, while the father’s X is active in another. This results in every woman being made up of different cells throughout their body. Every woman is literally a mosaic. The idea really resonated with me and I started brainstorming all the different figurative parts that can make up a woman. It started with several acrylic paintings of women in the full spectrum of visible light. I wanted to show the color and life present in all women in a really tangible way. From there, I began using collage to literally create women out of other things such as book pages, music, and flowers. Some women are purely symbolic, based off of ancient statues. Others are strong women in my life who I admire. The series presents a celebration of women in all their nuanced glory. This grew out of an idea as well as experiments with how best to articulate an idea through a medium I could enjoy working with. I continue to add to this series and expand the breadth and depth of ideas being expressed.