Hello,
I’m Erica Roldan and I’m a certified introvert, avid reader, poet, artist, rock music aficionado, a history loving person, an obsessed crime show fan. I have an undergraduate degree in Psychology however, I knew deep down in my heart that my path was to be in art. I love painting, drawing (mostly charcoal and pen), mixed media, and some sculpture. I’m currently a Graduate student at CCNY Art Education program working on my thesis research.
I have tons of ideas roaming around in my head that can be transformed into lesson plans. I have words that sometimes gather together, other times not inside my brain. It is these words, these stories that defines me as an artist. Since most of my work is poetry I would love to incorporate poetry in my classroom while also connecting it to artwork. This brings me to my research question about what the young artist process is. What goes on inside the mind of an artist/ art student? This particular interest may assist with how we structure our classrooms, how our students learn, how they process artistic ideas. This article Artists ‘have structurally different brains’ – BBC News mentions that artists’ have gray areas. I would love to explore that more without getting too scientific. I also would love to explore more about environment and space and how that could play a part in the creative process. I also want to delve into personality traits and how they are connected to the artist’s mind. I would like to extend my research topic to more than visual creativity. There are other types of creativity that an artist and student can demonstrate. I’m hoping to interview artists and students to get a sense of how their creative process works. Part of my research is through observation of the classroom environment, providing prompts for students in order to gauge how they process their ideas. By interviewing a few young artists from the City Art Lab program, I’ve already gathered that young artists as well as I thrive with detailed prompts. Their creative process becomes easily understood by the prompt given. I’m hoping to extend my research with approaching the creative process of established artists just to look into any differences and similarities to those of younger artists.
