Artist Spotlight – Vashti Corey

       Vashti Corey is this month’s artist spotlight. She is the current Sterling Scholar in art and is multi talented in all the art fields: music, drama, dance, and art. Vashti won 1st place overall in the State Youth Art Month Flag Contest and they will be using her design on a big flag to take to the National Art Education Association Convention. She created two pieces that she submitted for the All State High School Art Show. She also does productions at SCERA Theater and is currently in Seussical the Musical.

       Aside from casually drawing on her own time, she also takes classes from Mrs. Carter: Art 1, Art 3, and ceramics. Mrs. Carter says that Vashti is ambitious, imaginative, and willing to experiment. She says that one of the biggest challenges that hold artists back is being too afraid to mess up or fail.

       One thing that inspires Vashti and her artwork is music, she listens to it while she paints and draws. She has been diagnosed with synesthesia and more specifically chromesthesia. This means that she can hear music but sees shapes or hear a word or a name and she can instantly see a color. She incorporates that into her art and the pieces turn out amazing. Another inspiration for Vashti is Dr. Seuss and Walt Disney. She loves Dr. Seuss’ art style and childhood memories from Walt Disney and Disneyland play their own role in her artwork making the pieces colorful and imaginative. A quote from Vashti that she goes by is “You have to take risks to learn” and does so with her pieces, she has said that there have been some work-in-progresses that she didn’t feel were quite right and almost completely redid them.