AN ANALYSIS OF ARTISTRY
RACHEL UPDEGRAFT ON FAITH, PHYSICALITY, AND FINDING CONFIDENCE
Art functions as a mode of expressing one’s perceptions in a tangible way, and this is especially the case for Rachel Updegraft. While sharing a meal with Rachel, I listened to her reflect on how she uses her art to depict the relationships in her life and the emotions surrounding them. Much of her work relates to her faith and how she understands God, as well as her emotions surrounding personal relationships, “Going through social circumstances, not just the casual, but rather the deep relationships that have been ruined, or that have gone sour, or things that have happened between me and other people that were not within my control. It’s important to me that people see my grief as a result of those things.” For Rachel, her art puts her emotions on canvas in a truthful way.
Art has appealed to Rachel since elementary school years. She has wanted to be an artist since she was very young, but did not begin to seriously pursue it until middle school. Rachel began writing stories and creating inner worlds, venturing into art as a way of documenting what they looked like. This eventually led her to pursue a major in Painting and Drawing at Anderson University. As she has grown in her craft, she has come to believe that, “there is no form of communication that I think I can truly understand people with other than art.” At Anderson University, she works largely in oil and mixed paints, but in her personal time explores many other mediums, including digital designing.
Rachel finds a level of personal appeal in her specialty as well, sharing, “I love the physical aspect to it. I love being able to stretch my own canvas. I love dealing with a physical medium that is dependent on chemicals and the quality of paint that you buy and whether you’ve been taking care of your brushes. There’s just this beautiful creative aspect to designing something physical and creating it. And, I think it honestly connects us to God a little bit as a creator.” The physicality that draws her into her discipline is a part of what she hopes to share with future artists by pursuing her MFA at Clemson in the fall in hopes of teaching at a college level. She speaks on how she has such a love for the art community and hopes to help students who are going through the period of learning that she went through as a college art student.
Although everyone’s creative process looks different, Rachel’s inspirations come from many different places. She finds ideas for her art in various types of pop and indie music, other artists like Seung Ah Paik, and from her professors simply giving “insight and wisdom.” However, she thinks it generally comes down to “making inquiries and following them back to their roots.” A large part of the work that goes into creating is simply this method of considering a topic or idea that might interest her enough to depict.
When asked what might be a helpful tip for fellow artists in the face of rejection, Rachel spoke on the importance of confidence in one’s work: “People have biases. People have self-interest. People have an audience that they are looking for and specific people they are trying to cater to, and just because I don’t fit into that expectation, or that need, or that audience does not devalue the work that I do.” Rachel has continually demonstrated that confidence throughout her career as an artist by allowing herself room to take risks and push new boundaries. In whatever else she pursues, her love for art and her use of it to communicate truth will surely shine through in the work she creates.
