How This Art Student Is Adapting Creatively After Being Sent Home
Logan Alexander Wilder has embraced change since his spring semester on campus ended abruptly due to Covid-19.
A few months ago, Logan Alexander Wilder was ready to make the most of his spring semester at Massachusetts College of Art and Design. As a third-year undergraduate in a multidisciplinary program, he involved himself in a range of audio and visual projects, learning and collaborating with his creative peers in Boston.
“Those who I surround myself with at school and around the city all have their own unique approaches and stories to tell, expressing themselves through their fashion, artwork, music, or digital personas,” he says.
But Logan’s sense of community and sources of inspiration have shifted dramatically over the last few weeks. His school’s campus has closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and he recently returned to New Hampshire to finish the semester at home. He’s found himself transitioning from immersive studio classes to online instruction — and from energetic city life to rural surroundings.
“A change in landscape has brought both good and bad to my daily creativity,” he shares. “I have found a lot more inspiration from the outdoors than normal.”
Logan typically plays with color, texture, and distortion through vibrant and daring self-portrait collages. But even though most of his work is grounded in digital experimentation, he’s welcomed the opportunity to disconnect.
“I have been making sure my daily routine involves other endeavors, such as painting and scanning through my collection of old artist books,” he says.
Creative Tip: To achieve a super-saturated look, Logan suggests first brightening your image’s exposure and then dropping the highlights down to zero. These steps allow for the colors to pop when you increase saturation.
While learning online has been a difficult adjustment, there’s a silver lining. “A lot of the studio-based classes I’m enrolled in have been quite challenging to transition into due to lack of equipment and space,” he says. “But I’m using this barrier to take the time to research free open-source programs online that could further benefit my projects.”
Logan admits that teaching yourself a new program can be unduly frustrating at times. “But it also allows you to make happy accidents that you otherwise would’ve been taught to avoid,” he notes. “A chance of expression awaits.”
Logan’s willingness to embrace the unexpected is an innate part of his process, and he still finds a world of possibility within digital tools.
“Editing photos can be seen as a new message or way of thinking that you can express,” he says. “With no boundaries set as to what the final product should look like, I explore all the methods of creating something more abstract from the bland material I started with.”
Never repeating steps from project to project, he experiments with different forms and manipulations while maintaining his own personal aesthetic.
Despite the circumstances, Logan’s creative spirit remains open.
“I think this isolation due to the pandemic has really allowed me to realize how important it can be to develop and pursue your own unique path as a creator,” he says. “Focusing on yourself as an artist without constant distraction can give you something to look forward to that not only makes you happy, but allows anyone who you cross paths with to feel something.”
See more of Logan Alexander Wilder’s work on VSCO.
