Moonrise

Ofelia Seay

Interview by L. Valena

February 27, 2022

Why don't we start from the top! Can you describe the prompt that you responded to?

Yes! I responded to a quilt. It was a beautiful quilt -- a sunset with geometric shapes. I remember it being mostly squares and triangles, in a nice color gradient.

What was your first reaction to that?

My first reaction was excitement. I like to create artworks in grids. I was intrigued. I don't quilt and it looks terribly difficult. This quilt was very impressive.

Where did you go from there?

At first, I wanted to adapt the idea into an abstract portrait within a grid. I haven’t done that before, and was struggling with the excecution. I knew I was working on a time limit, so I decided to do something closer to what I know, but in a different way. I decided to make a grid and break it down into triangles, to make a cool centered pattern that I could watercolor in, to have that color gradient inspired by the sunset colors to expand outward.

You said that your first impulse was to create a portrait, can you say why?

My first impulse before the idea of a portrait, was that it would be expected to create an interpretation of a sunset, and I wanted to incorporate the techniques of the geometric patterns, and the gradients with the colors, but I wanted to do it in a different way. Something other than a sunset. So I thought about what I find beautiful like a sunset, and thought of my friends. I shoot portrait photography, and had a couple of portraits that I was thinking about adapting into an abstract piece. Then, once I got started, I realized that I wouldn't be able to do that with the amount of time that I had.

After I discovered that I didn't want to continue with my portrait idea, I had a bit of a thinking period. "What am I going to do with this, that honors this piece that I'm responding to? That isn't a literal interpretation of it, but is inspired by it?" I talked with one of my friends about it, and asked them what they got from the quilt. For them, it brought up the circle of life. Birth, death, that kind of cycle. That made me think of having that kind of radiating, expanding gradient, that starts with something more bright, and gets richer and deeper in color.

Is that idea or radiating something that you've explored in other works? Is that a theme that you work with?

No, it's actually not. Usually when I make grids with squares separated into triangles, I'm working with a very consistent pattern of colors. Usually, every square that I have that's broken down into triangles, the order of the colors within the triangles is the same in every one, so it creates a repeating pattern. I wanted to do that differently this time, in a way that reflected the piece I was responding to more. I chose colors from the piece that felt most sunset-ty for me, and I kind of stayed away from the colors of the bottom third of the quilt, which were more earthy.

I'm looking at this process shot you sent over of the work in progress sitting on a tiled surface, which is just gorgeous. Have you ever worked with tile before?

I have not, but I would like to. I think the process of placing the tile is really exciting and intriguing, and the art that I make with grids would look really good in tile form.

I want to hear more about your drawing process. This grid is really ornate. Do you use a ruler? Graph paper?

I start with a ruler. I have a very nice, engineer's ruler. I have a bunch of different measurements on every side of the ruler. I start with figuring out how I'm going to break down the paper, and what size the squares are going to be. Then I measure from the edges of the paper, so that the rectangle I'm starting with is the right size. This one is 8"x10". I broke it down into one inch squares. I start by marking the edges of the rectangle with little tics for each line, then I connect the lines with the ruler. And from there, I ditch the ruler and seperate the squares into triangles by hand. I think for me, getting the squares exact is the most important thing in terms of precision, and then after that, it doesn't matter to me quite as much if the triangles are exact. Especially since I'm using watercolor, it's not going to be precise no matter what I do. But sometimes when I'm making the squares with pen, I will use a ruler to break it down into triangles. For this design, I alternated the way that I was breaking down the squares. In certain rows, within a diamond shape, the squares are broken down more or less times.

Something else I'm noticing about your piece is this sense of movement -- it kind of messes with your eyes! That's something I personally aspire to in my own work, and I'm wondering if that's something you also aim for?

Usually it's not something I'm working towards, but I have been made aware by other people that a lot of my pieces come off as optical illusions. I think that's really cool, because growing up I really enjoyed flipping through books of optical illusions. Tricks of the eye are very fun. It's cool to make something that isn't intentionally designed to have that effect, but does. I enjoy that. I think another type of design or drawing that I tend to make, that also does that, is repeating lines that form around each other. I'll start with dots on paper, and then expand out from those dots. Make really small lines that expand out, and then they meet, and make cell-like designs. A lot of people say that looking at those creates an optical illusion.

How does this piece relate to the rest of your work?

I think it's a cool combination of two different types of artwork that I've been working on for awhile. The precise grid-style artworks, and the more poppy colors I've been working with lately. In the past, when I've worked with grids and created patterns and designs within them, I've mostly worked with a black felt-tip pen, or watercolors in really subdued tones. Lately I've been experimenting with alcohol markers, which are really bright. It was fun to combine those two ideas.

You spoke earlier about the idea of a cycle of life... Do you want to get a layer deeper about that?

Yeah. Let's see... what to talk about? There's a lot there! I think that growing up and having experiences at a young age of family members dying, I had a lot to grapple with in terms of fear of death. Since then, I've been practicing witchcraft and finding new ways of understanding energy in the world. Thinking about the possibilities of what comes after death. Hearing about different ideas of reincarnation have influenced some of my art, but also the fascination with death and decomposition has been a big influence for me. I recently created my first linocut. It's very exciting, it's a really fun process. My design was a decomposing deer's body in the forest. I think it's nice to find beauty in death.

I agree. I actually saw a decomposing deer in the forest when I was growing up, and that image stuck with me for a long time.

I have also seen a decomposing deer. I think at the time I was just like, "Wow! Cool!" Obviously, it's a lot more deep than just seeing it and saying "Gnarly! Rad!" But it is kind of gnarly and rad.

It is definitely gnarly and rad. Do you have another artist approaching this project for the first time?

My general advice to artists is that everyone is an artist. No-one is to say who's good at art, and what art is 'good'. I think all art is good, as long as you're expressing yourself and having a good time with it. I think that I like that advice for this project also. I don't think there's a point in stressing about making the perfect piece, as you said in your email. I would advise to take a feeling from whatever you're responding to. Or take some sort of fascinating technique. I think I would also advise that it's a good opportunity to create something kind of new. Something that might draw from previous experiences with artwork, but to do something in a new way, that is a little bit of a challenge, but not too time-consuming.

I do love when people answer the call like that, and use the opportunity to try something new. I love that you found this fusion of different techniques that you're working on. I think that's awesome.

Thank you! I think so too. It was really fun.

Call Number: M47VA | M49VA.seaMo

Ofelia Seay is a multimedia artist working primarily with watercolor paint, pen on paper, and linocut printing. Their art often utilizes repeating geometric and organic shapes to explore the transfer of energy across a page. Natural elements such as bones, menstruation, and fungal growth inspire their artworks.