After a bus accident, artist Frida Kahlo spent most of her life confined to a bed. Instead of letting the physical pain detriment her art career, she developed a special easel and mirror to facilitate painting while in bed.
Almost a century later, fourth grader Marcela Carrasco visited Kahlo’s Casa Azul while renewing her visa in Mexico City. Now a senior, Carrasco credits the visit as cementing her desire to be an artist.
“Seeing how hard this woman worked to create, and knowing that she had no formal art education just like me, I just thought, ‘Wow, I can do it too,’” Carrasco said.
While Carrasco had always appreciated art, she didn’t have a natural knack for it.
“Unlike other kids, my lack of skill [inspired me] to take art more seriously. I was not blessed with a divine skill to draw an apple realistically…I had to learn it through practice and a lot of hard work,” Carrasco said.
Most of Carrasco’s early art education came from the internet and art books. Starting in middle school, she would spend hours after school honing her craft, focusing on the more technical areas like figure drawing and shading that most kids skim over. Her self-taught basics helped set her up for success in formal art classes in high school.
“[The retired AP Art teacher] Ms. Marinel saw my potential. She was the person that told me, ‘Marcela, come sit with me. Let’s look at all these art schools that are around.’ [It was] in her studio where I realized I wanted to be surrounded by artists all the time, that I wanted a large amount of my education to simply be me drawing in a room surrounded by other creatives,” Carrasco said.
Pursuing a formal art education refined Carrasco’s artistic process, helping break large paintings down into small thumbnail sketches and planned colored palettes. However, she still enjoys doodling as a hobby and refuge from everyday life.
“I like art for so many different reasons. I like it because of what it tells us about our history as humans,” Carrasco said. “I think we have always had that itch to create and to place our mark on places…and that’s amazing.”
After high school, Carrasco will attend Pratt Institute in New York City, majoring in painting and minoring gallery studies/curation.
“I chose Pratt because of their tight-knit community. It is a small art school [with] a closed campus, and I wanted part of that traditional college experience of living on campus while also being surrounded by the amazing diversity and chaos that is life in New York City,” Carrasco said.
