Today we’d like to introduce you to Brenna Rusk.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
My name is Brenna Rusk, and I am a design thinker. Ever since I was little, I’ve held a consistent interest in the arts. It started with drawing on napkins in restaurants and soon grew to my mom giving me her old art books to look at and practice with. Though these two things helped me grow greatly, my heart was mainly captured by the animation industry. Watching bright colors fly across the screen and witnessing characters beyond the scope of my imagination express themselves made me want to do the same. I began exploring digital art and creating pieces with characters from my imagination and from media that I have been interested in. In doing that, I was able to create my own unique style, often taking inspiration from both digital and traditional artists alike. Digital art became a huge source of happiness while in middle school. However, during this time, I was attending a strictly academic academy with few forms of art expression. My art teacher at the time did everything she could to explore and expand our artistic pallets with the time we had. Despite her efforts, art became a less integral part of my life leading into the pandemic. As school moved to an online space and the pandemic worsened, I found myself only spending time on academy work. My ability to express myself grew less and less, becoming limited to a singular desk in my room. Moving into the heart of 2020, with social injustices finally being brought to the main stage, I was subjected to seeing abuse against my community, blogged, reposted, shared, and manipulated for selfish gain. It was beyond overwhelming, and change was needed. My parents and I began looking for art high schools to attend, and we came across Grand Prairie Fine Arts Academy. I can say confidently that I would not be where I am today without the support that my art professor gave me. Transitioning into 10th grade, I picked out as many art classes as I could. One of which being AP art. Throughout this class, I was able to explore different sustained investigations for a possible portfolio. I began to look back on my life thus far, and I got to work. Often put in positions to hide and suppress my culture, my work explores a deep connection between the modern and historic black community and what cultivates it. Manipulating different colors and exploring the bounds of what defines us, I express experiences often sugar-coated and bottled down. Throughout my life, I’ve found myself struggling to find media and art that accurately portrays the experiences that we go through in ways that catch attention and thought. Through sudden pops of color and jarring mixes of pallets and mediums, I am able to captivate the viewers’ eyes and minds. In my research, I’ve explored African proverbs and the stories they tell. I’ve woven some of these stories and concepts into my work to spread wisdom and connect the culture to the experiences we may depict as “too much to be portrayed.”
With my new body of work, I began entering competitions. I grew close with my fellow peers in art, creating an artist collective, and went on to do a gallery showing titled “Ebony Pages” at the Epic Center in Grand Prairie. Learning to curate the show, along with help from my teacher, was a dream come true. I felt everything coming together. At this showing, an amazing artist by the name of Justin Simmons attended. Impressed by our work, he invited us to be in another gallery show, “The Black Experience.” This showing has grown to be my most profitable one, meeting artists with years of experience commenting on my work. I know that there is so much more in store, and I cannot wait to share my art with the world.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I’ll be the first to admit…well, second only to my parents, that my time management skills aren’t the best. I often plan to do something extravagant but underestimate the amount of time that it takes me to complete something. I always end up turning in the assignment on time, but I end up cramming all of that work into the night before. Originally going to an all-academic school, I found myself being able to do this with most of my work. I was 100% stressed the whole way through, but it was completed nonetheless while maintaining a GPA of 4.0. However, my major underside was trying to balance academic work alongside artistic work. As I worked throughout the school year, I have adapted to this. No matter how much I proclaim that I like the feeling of working under stress, I know that it simply will not hold up in the long run. As I experience the arts in the black community, being an artist is not nearly as promoted as it needs to be. Seeing firsthand people express to others that they’ll never survive as an artist, especially being an artist of color, was dampening. “Your artwork only gets famous after you’re dead” and “Are you sure that’s something you really want to do? What about academics?” are sentences thrown around like crazy. People don’t understand that art is something found in absolutely everything we do. From the computer I used to type this, the car my parents drive to work, to even the toothpaste I use to brush my teeth in the morning, all were made through art. Someone had to sit down and design the framework of the computer, 3D design a model for the car, and design the eye-catching logo that makes people want to buy the toothpaste. Throughout my career, I want to make it known that the arts are not solely limited to pencil and paint but are as limitless as your imagination.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My artwork expresses pops of color through surrealism, working to express an array of topics that the particular series might cover. My main mediums so far have been prism color pencils, chalk pastels, and probably my favorite, oil pastels. These pieces express hints of realism with wacky elements. I would say that my biggest success has been starting an Art nonprofit with my friends called SELect arts. It’s designed as an after-school program that works to educate kids on informative psychological tips through artistic basics. Many of the kids at this school were not encouraged to achieve careers in the arts yet still hold huge interests in animation and digital art. We began teaching them that success is possible as an artist and that nothing can be achieved by simply dreaming of something happening. Everything needs a bit of elbow grease. Seeing their faces light up as we worked with them in developing a “Mock- middle school Portfolio” consistently made my day. I want to continue to make this impact on young artists around the world.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
I feel as though nothing happens just because it happens; almost everything is earned through work. Opportunities can be passed and received. What determines it is the place and time you are at to receive those opportunities. I’ve been faced with a lot of missed opportunities that have turned into positive outcomes. When applying to an art-focused high school for my sophomore year, I was faced with one of these scenarios, I had originally seen myself going to this school, but I ended up being placed in the fifth spot on their waiting list. They only took a total of ten new students for all disciplines for grades 10-12. Though, at the time, I did not see it, that was one of the best things that could have happened to me. The school that I am attending now has surrounded me with people, opportunities, and experiences I would never be able to find anywhere else, and for that, I am grateful.
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