Mallory Hodgkin

I have always been drawing. Some of my first memories are of me in church and getting too restless and my mom would hand me a receipt and a pen and let me draw instead of waggling my legs at top speeds. Then I drew on my schoolwork, the teachers had mixed reviews on the finished products since a good deal of the time it covered up more “important” stuff like math. Agree to disagree, in my opinion. But I never stopped and it never got boring. Toys and games and other interests have come and gone, but I’ve never put down the pencil.

A lot of artists don’t admit they first and foremost draw for themselves, I definitely do and it took a long time and more than one round of self-examination to understand that. My perspective is slightly different because I typically draw things for a younger version of myself. I frequently think, “What would me at 7 years old want to see?” and create that, my tastes as a child leaned heavily toward the fantasy and horror genres and still do.  I usually end up with images of monsters or animals in bright colors using much-loved influences from street art, animation, and tattoo flash. I’m also academically trained and use color theory and compositional fundamentals to hone these monsters and critters into more polished works than what I used to make on notebook paper in school.

In the past, I have tried to do other jobs and start multiple other careers, but lost interest in each one with time, but art never got boring. It got scary, it got difficult, and it got incredibly stressful in a multitude of ways, but never boring. I never want to stop creating and never intend to and am looking forward to making all the goofy-looking creatures in all the loud colors until my hands fall off.