Profile Post: Heather Day
On various social media platforms, I have been following the artist Heather Day and her creative process for about six months now. Day is working artist in based in the northern California area focusing on two-dimensional abstract paintings. She publishes a ‘Journal’ on her professional website in addition to her portfolio of her artwork. She is writing about her own artwork and experiences, therefore it is a very personal blog that she is exposing to the world. Since her posts are very personal, I believe that her point of view when writing about her own artwork is more introspective and reflective of her experiences, rather than attempting to persuade or explain something in a particular manner.
Her blog is very minimal in the sense that she doesn’t update it often. She only posts a few times a month and has started about four months ago. Her posts are about her experience with the artwork that she is creating, her experiences and journeys that she is embarking on creatively and creative reactions to our culture. Her journal is another form of expressing herself and having the opportunity to verbalize all her thoughts that she is not expressing via painting. Or perhaps offers as an additional creative supplement to her visual artworks. Her overall tone of voice is very honest and humbling throughout her entries. She is not writing to persuade or argue, but to explain, explore, and demonstrate her thoughts with an open mind. Additionally, the entries that have been more focused about her current experiences with projects that she is working on are a bit more informative explaining her work to her audience. Recently she has received more traffic on her posts, with the most likes being forty-five, with eight comments responding to her post.
Her most recent post is titled, “Dyslexia: Marks Unraveled” and is about her experience dealing with dyslexia as a young contemporary artist. She explains her lack of focus in her personal and creative life and how it has impacted her as an artist. Her brain understands the world and perceives things differently than a lot of other people and she recognizes that now and tries to explain it verbally. She provides her readers with a background history of her journey with dyslexia and how she has learned to appreciate and embrace her different way of thinking. Additionally she includes her thoughts about stereotypical assumptions of dyslexia, the typical classroom-learning environment, and identifying with others who have similar brains to hers. All of her points are reflected back onto her experience of being an artist today and dealing with these situations while continuing to figure things out creatively.
Another entry I found interesting was, “I Made This For You (and Me.) This piece was more focused on her very personal thoughts about the color blue and how that has leaded her to work on collaborative projects. She discusses her feelings about this color and the impact it has had by being approached by commercial companies. She switches gears and going into a more explanatory style of writing to discuss the collaboration she is working on. She briefly explains the work she is making for the collaborative project and how it came about. In addition to explaining the pieces verbally, she attaches photographs of her work and of herself working in her studio.
