Student art feature: Mariah King
The Colby student body consists of many artists. Some have even gotten the chance to share their art with the community whether it is through performances or designing logos for the College.
One student that has recently gotten the opportunity to showcase her talent is Mariah King `22. Despite be- ing a biology major, King made sure that when she got to Colby she still continued her passion for various art mediums as she picked up an art minor.
The Colby Echo had the opportunity to sit down with King to discuss her art journey up until now.
“It has always been something that I’m good at and I [have] definitely known since I was little that I loved making art,” she ex- plained. “And I feel like I’ve had really good teachers along the way in both middle school and high school who have helped me develop my skills in differ- ent way and made me want to further pursue art in college.”
King further de- scribed her experience with the art department at Colby.
“The program at Colby is really incredible. It allows you to explore many different facets of art like sculpture, painting, and print- making which is really cool because I’ve never tried those types of art before.”
“Freshman and sophomore year I took Professor Borthwick’s classes on sculpture and he just has a very different approach to art unlike any other teacher I’ve experienced.”
“He is just very, I think the right word to describe it is ‘free’,” she went on. “His art is more about how you’re feeling than focusing on what you should
be making. So I loved taking his classes as it made me loosen up a little when I make art and it made me realize that it doesn’t always have to be perfect.”
King makes sure that her inspirations are apparent in all of her creations, even for class.
“When you take an art class you usually get a prompt for your artwork,” she ex- plained. “And they are pretty open-ended so I like to create art that I am passionate about, so that would include things like my dogs, my brothers, or even nature. I mainly get in- spired by my surroundings and the people I’m with.”
King told The Colby Echo about how one of her artworks was recently selected to be distributed in the Spa.
“My Intro to Print- making class partnered with Colby Votes for a project for Civic Engagement. We were given the prompt ‘what does democracy mean to you’, so we had to carve out a linoleum sheet for the project. So what I created contained the repetition of the words ‘change starts here’ which came together to spell out the word ‘vote’.”
King continued, “I feel like it’s hard to feel as an individual person you can make a change but that’s the whole point of voting, that everyone has to do it in order to make a difference, in order to get the right people in [power] who can make a difference.”
She was pleased with her art’s reception.
“It was cool that people liked the message I was trying to portray with my artwork since that was the whole point of the assignment. It made me want to create more meaningful artwork and art with a purpose.”
This experience has also made King want to be able to share more of her art with the Colby community.
“As you take higher level art courses it’s definitely easier to be- come involved with Colby because different professors will tell you about opportunities, so it’s definitely something I’ll look into in the future.”
While King may not want to pursue a career in the arts, she believes that it will always be a part of her life.
“I want to be a dentist and when I went on a dental school tour the dean mentioned that there is an art to dentistry since you build relationships.” she ex- plained. “It may not be a direct connection, but it definitely something that will help me destress throughout my life.”
~ Tanvi Iyer `22
