Student Profile: Kristie Bush
by Tamu Miles - The Navigator
Kristie Bush is pleased with the attention she has received over the last year when it comes to her art, but she doesn't quite understand it. The 18-year-old first-year Visual Art transfer student says that when she started drawing in Grade 6, she wasn't very good. Bush says that she was introduced to now long-time friend Jessica who was "a really good artist, and she kind of inspired me to want to draw." Between Grade 6 and Grade 9, Bush figured that if she just kept plugging away at her art that she would eventually get better. Now she spends 95 percent of her time drawing. "I'll do it when I should be doing other things or nothing at all."
Now, after completing her first year at VIU, Bush can boast that three of her drawings will appear in the 2012 issue of Portal magazine, and she will also have three of her pieces in the upcoming student art show "Progressions" at the downtown Nanaimo Art Gallery (150 Commercial Street) from Mar. 27–Apr. 7. The gallery has also asked if she would like to sell some of her work in the gift shop. Not bad for someone who isn't quite sure if Visual Art will actually be her major, and for whom the attention is "a little bit weird . . . probably because I've just been doing my own thing."
The three pieces Bush will have displayed during "Progressions" include a 3D box that is "really weird. It's kind of inspired by a staple puller because that's the object I got [for the project] and it turns out to be like a fish, and it has some kind of sheet metal body." Then there is her texture project (one of her favourites) in pen and ink. "I had to feature a fur, a fish, and wood. So it has these weird wood textures and they go through this rabbit and a giant salmon fish." The third piece is a re-creation project for which the students in Bush's class were instructed to choose an artist and recreate one of their works. "So I picked an 18th century illustration of a dinosaur-thing peeking through a window [...] and it's done in charcoal."
The works that are featured in Portal are what Bush describes as "doodly expressive works," each one of them line drawings taken from one of her many sketchbooks. But Bush does not only draw, she also likes to paint, draw landscapes, and work with clay. She says she likes to go to second-hand stores to find things that inspire her. She showed me a picture of what I think was a wooden toy dog she had found on one such excursion that she had painted in bright greens, blues, and reds. Bush says she would also like to play with computer art and animation. She has taken a first-year Digital Media course where she made a website focusing on the population of rabbits on campus. "It's more about what I can do through it, than what the medium is itself."
Right now, rabbits seem to be her inspiration. She volunteers at the Ears Shelter in Coombs—a refuge to some of the many bunnies rescued from UVic—and you can see the influence in much of her work, including those pieces published in Portal. She also draws inspiration from dinosaurs, dragons, and fish. "If I could do the science and the math I would probably be some sort of biologist. But my brain isn't geared for math," she says.
Bush has no end of ideas when it comes to ways in which she can sell her artwork. When classes finish this semester, she plans to start doing some clay work, making prints, cards, and buttons, and selling through the Nanaimo Art Gallery, at some of the many local markets, and personally to people she meets. She might even do a few commissions. She says that many students from the Portal class have approached her about purchasing prints of her accepted works, and that she always has people approaching her with ideas or images they would like her to draw.
If you would like to check out some of Bush's work, you can go to her art portfolio website <http://rabbitasaur.daportfolio.com/>, head down to the downtown Nanaimo Art Gallery between Mar. 27 and Apr. 7, or pick up a copy of the 2012 issue of Portal magazine at the launch party in the Royal Arbutus Room (bldg 300) on Apr. 5.