By Georgie Hicks
I’ve known Melanie for over 5 years. She graduated from Evergreen in 2013. Recently she was accepted into the MFA program at Digipen Institute of Technology. Last week I sat down with her to ask her about art, grad school and life after Evergreen in general.
Hi Melanie. How would you describe your art style?
I guess very cartoony and anime influenced. I’m trying to move away from anime because I got into anime super young and then when I got older I got into like other forms of art like more classical forms of art and then I got into western style comic books and then experimental comic books, and then I was like, oh yeah, I should do something other than freakin anime all the time. But it still is very anime and I’m trying to move away from that.
Is there a specific direction you’re moving towards?
Not particularly. I do want my art to have more fluid movements. I’ve tried to have more fluid movement. I’ve noticed a lot of anime can look a little stiff and I like more curves, more wigglyness to my cartoon characters.
Want to name a couple of your influences?
I guess I just like spend a lot of time on the internet and I’ll often see what other artist do and I’ll be like, oh thats looks cool, I’ll try doing that. Then I’ll try to incorporate that into what I’m doing and either it works or it doesn’t, and I just keep doing that over and over again.
I’d just say its influenced by the great hivemind that is the internet.
What drives you as an artist?
I don’t know I guess it’s just something, you know art is something I really like to do and I just really wanna do it all the time forever. So yeah, I don’t know. I’ve always liked to draw. Even as a kid I really wanted to be an artist. Every time I can see improvement in my arts it’s just motivation to keep going, you know?
So, your main goal is to be an animator?
That used to be my main goal, now I have no idea what my main goal is. I would still like to work in the animation industry or maybe the video game industry, but I don’t know if I want to be an animator but I definitely want to work in that field. And maybe I’ll change my mind and stay an animator I don’t know.
What was it like working on your degree when you were at Evergreen?
You know it really depended on the class I was in. Most of the classes I took were pretty intense. I didn’t sleep. I like slept three hours a night cause I was working on stuff. Yeah, I didn’t really have too much of a social life sometimes. I feel like college is just this lack of sleep.
That is accurate yes.
Yeah, like you don’t sleep in college. You sleep when you graduate. Maybe.
Do you?
Ummm depends on what you do for a living afterwards I guess. Yeah, Evergreen is an interesting place because it’s definitely like you get what you put into it. You know what I mean. And there are definitely classes where they make you work SO HARD that you just wanna pull your hair out but by the end of it like you can really see the improvements that you’ve made just in like a few short months. And then there were classes that I kind of coasted through and that it was really easy and I didn’t really feel, or, at least, I saw like no difference in my art at the end of it, you know? So working towards my degree it really depends on the class I was in. Oh, there was a time where I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to study so I studied like economics and stuff which was interesting, but it didn’t end up, I don’t know — I just liked art way more.
If you were talking to somebody who is at Evergreen right now or is new or thinking about coming to Evergreen to study art, do you have any tips or things you’d want to tell them?
So I haven’t been at like Evergreen in like 5 years, but [when I was there] they definitely had like a super heavy emphasis on traditional art: painting and pencil, charcoal drawing. Which is good. You definitely use those and really need that strong foundation to grow, and like most MFA programs are looking for a very strong foundation in traditional art but the one thing I noticed when I got out of Evergreen is that I had very little knowledge of like the technologies that bigger industries want. And I would say like maybe consider taking independents in those things if you’re interested in graphic design or like animation or video game development of any kind or just it’s probably just good to have under your belt. To know Photoshop or Illustrator or something. So yeah, I would say study more digital stuff. Evergreen is not the best about teaching you digital mediums but you will learn everything about traditional mediums.
Do you wanna talk about what you’ve been doing since [you graduated]?Ooooh. Well for like 3 years I’ve been trying to get into a MFA program and I finally got into one. Holy crap that was hard. And I got into a really good one too.
Yeah you did!
Now I don’t sleep and all I do is homework. But the MFA is only for two years and hopefully at the end of it I’ll have a sweet job. Other than that I don’t know. Lots of just having really random ass jobs obviously. Like when I first got out of Evergreen I had three jobs at the same time. I worked at Toys R Us, RIP. I worked as a ghostwriter writing fake reviews for Amazon products and shit, so don’t ever believe the things you read because I was paid to write some of those. And I also was a filmographer at like different horse ranches. Rich people just love you to film their horses, it’s weird [laughing]. Then I tried traveling a lot. It’s hard when you’re broke but, you know, road trips to California and around Washington when I could. I went to Japan. So traveling and mostly work as a food delivery which pays surprisingly well. Yeah, mostly just labor after I got out and then I was like I’m really sick of this I should probably go back to school. So I started applying for MFAs and that took forever.
Tell me a little about Digipen?
Ohh I mean I just started like last week. It’s pretty intense. They expect a lot of you right away which is fine because I mean who needs to fucking sleep. I mean they kind of gave me a warning when I got my acceptance letter that was like, ‘hey when you start were going to hit the ground running, so, I don’t know, enjoy your summer, because [laughing] you’re not gonna have any free time for awhile’ and I’m like, “oh, alright.” So yeah, Digipen’s been great. I really like it. It’s been it’s nice to be back in a school environment. Everybody is a huge nerd like me, which is great. Speaking of nerds—what is that video game everyone is obsessed with right now with the cute waifu fighters?
I have no idea.
Oh my gosh I can’t remember. It’ll come to me later. Anyway, there’s a decked out car that looks like that in front of me right now.
That’s Seattle for you.
It’s great. Like I said, they expect a whole lot from you up front. I have a whole lot of projects right now that I’m working on right now. I’m working on the copying the masters project which is like where you take a piece of classical art and you recreate it in photoshop which is so much harder than I thought it would be. I had kind of a mini breakdown over it actually, yesterday. But I had some time to breathe and I chose an easier looking painting and I think I’m ok. The school itself it’s pretty small. My MFA class is only like 14 people. I kind of have crazy imposter syndrome because there are people in my class who are just incredible and they’ve like already done such amazing things. Like there’s this girl in my class that, like, she worked on Black Panther, like, she helped design the suit for Black Panther and I was like what are you doing here, like, you’re done.
I think that talking about imposter syndrome especially in relation to like MFA’s is really important.
Yeah it does feel almost like a mistake that I’m here, but I’m here and I’m gonna try to kick ass.
Well I’m gonna tell you it’s not a mistake.
That’s sweet of you. Maybe this isn’t the most inspiring story for your readers.
I really do think it’s important to talk about imposter syndrome. It’s rough out there.
Ya ya it has been a rough few years since I left Evergreen. Evergreen is definity a bit of a bubble.
Absolutely.
When I was there it was a very hippy dippy very freeing. I don’t know, I really got to explore what I’m about in a way that I hadn’t before, and Evergreen was very supportive about all that, about my journey, and then I like got out of college and everyone — well, no one — gave a shit about me, [and] I was like, “oh yeah, the world doesn’t really hold your hand in these situations and this is rough.” [Laughing]
That kind of leads into: how’s the job market as a graduate?
Crap. [Laughing] it really depends on what you’re doing. Like if you’re studying medicine, you are OK! Cause there is an extreme shortage of doctors right now. If you’re studying art, the art world it is competitive and tough and it is a lot of work. A lot of it has to do with just making connections and really throwing yourself out there, which is terrifying because I am not good at talking to people. I don’t like talking to strangers in professional setting. It is horrifying but I’m learning that stuff is a lot of it you really have to put yourself out there really kind of got to be pushy. I don’t like it, but that’s just kind of what you have to do. I’m actually like taking these classes that are essentially like how to shmooze, because Digipen also has this whole people aspect where there are people from professional industries scouting students and so they’re like, “this is how you wanna approach them, talk to them, have business cards have a freaking website, have a portfolio, be confident.” And it’s like I’m none of those things. So yeah, I feel like Digipen is really trying to prepare you for i guess a more of a job setting where Evergreen was like woohoo, be yourself even if yourself is an anxious mess, which I am.
And there is like there is value to that, I’m not saying there isn’t. It was nice to have people acknowledge me for like who I was, but industries dont care about that. Well no they do, they care about your artistic voice they just want you to be able to show it, you know? The industry is, like, super competitive, especially if you are going into animation or video games. It’s very competitive so you really gotta — gosh I don’t know how to say this without sounding like a dick — you just gotta go for it, just really go for it! Like, don’t be like, “oh well i’m not ready for this one. I can’t do this interview. I’m not good enough.” No, like, just go for it, put on your nicest clothes, brush your hair, go for it. Try not to barf from anxiety — maybe this is just me, OMG. No, it’s nerve wracking. I don’t know, I guess my advice would just be keep trying, just go for it. Go for it, yeah.
Do you wanna talk about some of the art we have here?
My watercolors which are of the scenes I did. A lot of them — well, I think only two of the ones I’m sending you — are of the places in Japan. I tried to capture the serenity that I felt when i was there, because japan was awesome, and like the painting themselves I guess are kind of pretty. They weren’t like remarkable tourist destinations or anything. Like one is of a really small shrine, it was about the size of a tool shed maybe. And the other one was like of a set of apartment building, like, by a river, and that’s probably I guess not considered, like, super spectacular to everyone, but while I looked at them, I don’t know, I felt something pretty.
It meant something to you.
Yeah, it meant something, it meant a lot to me it was so — I’m not good with words, that’s why I paint things. It was just so different. Like I’d never been to a country where there was so many apartments just so close to a river, or where there’s just small buddhist shrines just everywhere I go. And they look so beautiful and ancient and people just walk by them because they probably see them everyday on the way to work and shit, but I had never seen it and it was super new to me so.
The sexy chickens — that one was just based of a really brief cartoon I did like a few years ago. I stIll occasionally doodle the chicken legs. It’s like a there’s not much to say about that one. I just thought it looked funny and the idea of like a rooster with beautiful sexy human legs is hilarious to me and probably no one else.
La llorona — I went through a horror movie kick for a while and I would one day love to make an actual comic book about la llorona, which is a latin american ghost story of, like, a woman who drowned her children and then drowned herself and now she roams the land haunting everyone drowning kids for funsies or whatever.
The Trans Day of the Dead — I really like that one [web ed note: this piece is at the top of this page]. So being the super slow artist I am, I meant to release this on the trans day of remembrance like two years ago, but I actually didn’t finish it until like the following summer. But while I was there [Guatemala] I learned that — and the statistics might be different — I can’t remember what year I learned this — that particular year the majority of trans people that had died were trans women in Latin America. And I was, like, how that’s a lot of bullshit, and so I kind of drew this as an homage to them, and in the hopes that they find peace in the afterlife, and that hopefully this is fucking stop because holy crap that’s so fucking awful.
You can check out Melanie @Bobalooshrimp on Instagram.
You must be logged in to post a comment.