Me + My Parents
On July 29th 1995, I, Lexie Gruber was born into this very world. Both Tara, my mother, and Daniel, my father, became young parents at ages twenty and twenty-three. Nonetheless, both of my parents were thrilled upon my arrival even if I wasn’t necessarily supposed to happen. I am an only child and have always wondered what it would have been like growing up with a sibling. As a little girl I remember spending a lot of time at both my grandparents’ house on my mom’s side of the family and my dad’s side of the family. Both of my grandparents on each side of my family helped raise me as my parents needed the help being young and with trying to get their careers to take off at the time. My parents got married when I was three years old and divorce when I was five years old. Because this happened when I was so young, I don’t remember much of it. I do remember my dad telling me that I would get to have two Christmases and two birthdays, so I thought that it was a great thing! Come to find out, it was a lot of back and forth, push and pull, traveling from house to house, and middle woman negotiation. Regardless of the divorce and the impact that it had on me, I have wonderful relationships with both my mother and father still. I have predominantly lived with my mother and love spending time with my father. He lives in San Diego now. I enjoy spending time with both of my parents because they are two of my best friends.
On July 29th 1995, I, Lexie Gruber was born into this very world. Both Tara, my mother, and Daniel, my father, became young parents at ages twenty and twenty-three. Nonetheless, both of my parents were thrilled upon my arrival even if I wasn’t necessarily supposed to happen. I am an only child and have always wondered what it would have been like growing up with a sibling. As a little girl I remember spending a lot of time at both my grandparents’ house on my mom’s side of the family and my dad’s side of the family. Both of my grandparents on each side of my family helped raise me as my parents needed the help being young and with trying to get their careers to take off at the time. My parents got married when I was three years old and divorce when I was five years old. Because this happened when I was so young, I don’t remember much of it. I do remember my dad telling me that I would get to have two Christmases and two birthdays, so I thought that it was a great thing! Come to find out, it was a lot of back and forth, push and pull, traveling from house to house, and middle woman negotiation. Regardless of the divorce and the impact that it had on me, I have wonderful relationships with both my mother and father still. I have predominantly lived with my mother and love spending time with my father. He lives in San Diego now. I enjoy spending time with both of my parents because they are two of my best friends.
Historical Family Influences
As far as art and family history goes, my great grandfather had his own sign company called “Graham Sign Services” that he started by himself in his garage. These signs and graphics were all hand painting. Much of what they painted were logos and details on cars and signs. My great uncles and grandfather all inherited the business. The only son of my great grandfather who wasn’t directly involved was my actual grandfather, the connection to this part of my family as he went off to the Vietnam war in his early twenty’s at the time that him and his brothers inherited the business. Over time power struggles and disagreement overtook the business and it no longer operates. However, my great Uncle Steve owns his very own sign business now called “Targin Sign Systems.” While I don’t paint signs, my medium of choice is painting and I find it interesting that painting does trace back in my family history.
Immediate Family Influences
My dad and his siblings (my aunt and uncle) all have a life that has related to art/consists of artmaking. My Aunt Gini is an office furniture designer and my uncle is a fashion designer. My dad was going to be an architect but didn’t like the technological components and during this time architecture was starting to be used with technology in his first years of college. My dad is a doodler and draws from representation exceptionally well. He has a legendary cat that he signs every card that he has ever given me with. As a little girl, I remember drawing houses with him, building cityscapes and towns out of Legos, and playing in a fort in the woods that he constructed for me. The sketch on the right is a drawing that I did of my dad. We would climb trees in the woods where my fort was so I called him a monkey. In this drawing I depicted my dad as a monkey with a mohawk as he had a mohawk during this time in my life. In short, all of these people have left an artistic footprint on my life and have somehow and in some way have impacted me and inspired me to be the artist that I am today.
Elementary Art
Unfortunately, my elementary school did not have one particular art teacher. There was a multi-purpose teacher who taught technology class, library studies, and conducted some art lessons occasionally. This is why the art from when I was little mainly consists of drawings done with simple, easy-to-access materials such as crayons and markers on regular 8.5 X 11 computer paper. I had always loved to draw. I was that kid who if I was bored, I wanted to color or draw a picture. No one ever forced me to do this. I always just wanted to, and it felt natural for me to do this. I don’t really see any overlying themes in my drawings as a kid. I seemed to have gravitated toward vibrant colors in many of my drawings though. I had two short segments out of my sixth and eighth grade years where I had art class and no art in seventh grade. It was just the way my school was designed. We had other exploratory classes we were required to take so art was not a class that I had all year round. |
The Performing Arts
Late elementary and early middle school, I became enthralled with the performing arts. This was the art that I was involved in throughout my young life. I started playing the violin in fifth grade, which I continued with for six years. I joined choir in the fifth grade which I was a part of until my senior year of high school. I took a series acting classes and was cast in many musicals and plays with lead roles over the years. I loved having the ability and freedom to become someone else and tell someone else's story and in an environment that shines light, quite literally, on narratives that vastly range in subject matter. There is a show that everyone can resonate with on some type of level. The roles that I enjoyed playing the most have always been the most opposite of me which I have always found to be interesting. I believe this is because the whole role is acted out and no part of it relates to me. Being yourself on stage is difficult and you are more vulnerable. Being someone else, you lose that sense of self-consciousness as you know very well you are playing a character and that character is not you.
Favorite Role
The Next Moves...
As high school graduation day approached, I had it set in my mind that I wanted to move far away and go to college out of state if it was the last thing that I did. I ended up attending The University of Missouri for my first semester as a freshman in college with the intended major of being a radio/television broadcaster. My time at Mizzou was a blur. There were so many changes that happened so abruptly; I felt out of place and aimless. I was already in thousands of dollars of debt just by being there. I did not want to pursue my intended major and it was just my gut feeling that I was not in the right the place. I decided that it would be best for me to come home and figure out what I really wanted to do with my life so that I wasn’t wasting money and living unhappily.
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That second semester of college I attended Elgin Community College. ECC had a huge impact in helping me find my way and I was successful there. I have now achieved an associate’s degree in arts and a separate associate’s degree in fine arts with an emphasis in visual art. I decided to randomly take a painting class my first semester of ECC because I have always wanted to try it. I thought I needed a break in my class schedule with all the other general education courses that I was taking. I didn’t know it at the time but that was the class where I gained the clarity that I needed to decide what I wanted to do with my life. With every brushstroke, I fell more in love with the art.
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Collegiate Artwork
From there on out, I continued to take studio art classes and tried a variety of media. No matter what, I continue to come back to painting. Painting found me when I needed it most and I found it. I wish that I had more opportunities to be involved in the visual arts earlier on as I feel like I lost a lot of time that could have dedicated to visual arts. The one element of art that has always spoken to me is color. Working and experimenting with color has always been the most fun and has felt the most rewarding to me as an artist. Achieving different colors while mixing two, three, or even four colors together I find to be gratifying. With the art that I create, it has never been that important to me on how photo-real my pieces are. The impressionist movement has been very influential in my art making. I am taken by the movement and free flowing energy that these artists capture to create unified compositions. Surrealism has also been one of my favorite art movements. Salvador Dali and Vladimir Kush have influenced this. I like and have been experimenting with mixing my nondescript style with surrealism as impressionistic ways and surrealism are two styles that aren’t generally put together. In general, I like when the viewers have a little more to look for and figure out on their own rather than when a work of art “spells out” exactly what it is trying to say.
Strengths and Weaknesses
I consider successful pieces to have just enough information to get the intent across but not enough information to where the viewer can look at it and look away in a second flat and know exactly what is going on in the piece. I feel as though my use of color and stylized nature are two of my strengths. Not paying enough attention to detail and relying too heavily on reference photos are two of my weaknesses. Early on when I first began painting I would simply find a picture that I liked and then painted it. My artistic educational career later on was pushed in a way that made me think deeper about what and why I was creating. This is when I started to create more conceptually sound pieces. While I didn’t start involving myself in the visual arts until my college career, I have never felt more alive. Just like some of my projects, as an artist I am a work in progress.