By Shianne Taylor
A&E Editor
Cameron art students Andy Cortez and Camila Ramos are excited about the flexibility of Cameron’s art department.
Cortez, a freshman, said Cameron provides a vast art program.
“Here at Cameron we get the opportunity to explore all different kinds of mediums as first year students,” Cortez said.
The University offers different art classes that not every school offers such as welding arts, which is one of the reasons why Ramos, also a freshman from El Salvador, chose to come to Cameron.
Ramos chose art because she wanted to one day create something that evokes emotion in people.
“Personally, I feel like what art is for me is not only is it a way for me to catalyze a message or my feelings or something that I want to get through to someone else, I find something beautiful about creating stuff that affects people,” Ramos said.
She talked about how being an artist allows her to even help other people’s visions come to light because they know what they want, but do not know how to necessarily create it.
“Let’s say I do a piece for someone else. I enjoy it so much when they see the final product and it’s exactly what they want,” Ramos said.
No matter if someone is doing art for themselves or someone else every piece of art has a message within it, art is a powerful tool, that is subjective where everyone can express themselves.
“I think it’s more about what others get out of it than what I put into it,” Cortez said. “Art is like escapism for me, it’s a way to just cool down and forget the world around me. It’s like a stability thing for me. There’s something comforting about transforming an idea from real life into art that may or may not last a great deal of time.”
Ramos echoed the same message as Cortez by talking about when doing homework for one of her art classes or doing personal projects she has the ability to get lost in her work and can work for hours.
Cortez, Ramos and the other students in the art department are taking something they are passionate about and building their foundations.
“As art students we all come from a lot of different backgrounds so a lot of us have varying levels of experience,” Cortez said.
“We are trying to build our understanding of the tools and the resources we can use in this class because no artist is
just great from the get go. We are learning to build up our experience.”
Ramos talked about how one day with her career she plans on going into concept art or work in the media.
“I want to create a character or product that someone loves,” Ramos said. “Like someone had to design the superheroes we love.”
Cortez said he was appreciative of the path older artists like Picasso had created. Ramos talked about how she enjoys seeing the art work of small and up and coming artists.
Everyone has something to contribute to the spaces around them and through their art Cortez and Ramos hope to one day bring messages through their art.
