More Than Meets the Eye

Art has always been part of Blake Coker’s life.

“It’s hard for me to put a date on when I first started drawing, I’ve been kind of doing it since I can remember,” said the fourth-year fine arts student who hopes to graduate from UI in December.

Coker said he would like to work for a company that allows him to make stories that change people’s opinions or perspectives on various things. He’s an avid believer art affects more than the artist.

“That’s the goal of illustration — to change people’s perspective on things,” Coker said.

He has spent his last year at UI working on a project — “Pieces” — aiming to do exactly that, as well as bringing together his passions and life experiences.

Coker said one of the biggest influences on his art has been his family. “Pieces,” a comic book, is based on his younger brother, who is on the autism spectrum.

“I wanted to tell the story, maybe giving people a little more insight to that disability,” he said.

Initially, Coker said it was difficult coming up with the topic, but his mother reminded him he could draw from his relationship with his brother.

“It’s easier to tell a story that is personal to me — not a lot is going to be lost in translation,” he said.

Balancing the spectrum

In her studio, Talitha Davis found tranquility through art.

“The metal shop and the studio was just a place where I was treated well and respected,” the sculpture specialist said.

Art began as something of an escape for Davis, giving her balance in her interpretation of gender versus what the world around her saw as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine.’

“It started in a place where I was kind of labeled and bullied for who I was because I was either too masculine or too butch. My femininity has somewhat haunted me because I’m seen as this fragile thing that isn’t strong, that can’t do hard work or heavy lifting,” Davis said. “In the metal shop, not only am I able to create beautiful, feminine things, but I can do it in a masculine way, and in my own way.”

Davis said she discovered sculpting during the latter half of her first year at UI — a time when she needed it most.

“In my first semester of college, I was in an abusive relationship and ended up pregnant,” Davis said. “Through unfortunate circumstances, I lost my baby boy, Rory, to a terminal birth defect.”

Her sculptures are more than just visual works of art, she said, they are her “surrogate children” — representative of one she lost.

“(It is) a way for Rory’s spirit to live on,” she said.

Her most recent creation goes by the name Nova — a metal whale sculpture.

“I didn’t actually know why I was making her, but she kind of became this weird self-portrait of me and my journey through loving my body after abuse,” Davis said. “When you look at the whale she’s very beat up — it’s bent, it’s covered in these scratches. But when you turn on the lights and everything else and shine on it, it’s really beautiful and peaceful.”

Behind the screen

When Wyatt Manyon moved from Hawaii to Lewiston at 10 years old, he lost his connection to art — a connection that took a decade to rediscover.

The catalyst? A trip back to Hawaii.

While he does not outright agree with art being used to make political statements, Manyon, a fourth-year student specializing in printmaking on silkscreen, said he’s created these types of pieces.

But he doesn’t agree entirely with outright political social change being forced on those viewing someone’s art.

“I like to let people make their own opinions about art rather than just getting hit in the face with something that says like, ‘Trump is stupid,’” Manyon. “I haven’t made a lot of explicit political pieces. I made a woodblock print, that was probably the most political thing I’ve ever made, with a bunch of riot cops standing shoulder to shoulder.”

As opposed to swaying individual political opinions, Manyon said he would rather influence the actions and opinions others have on environmentalism.

He also incorporates religious themes in his prints, despite not identifying with any specific religion.

“I’m an atheist, and I don’t believe in any higher power or anything, but I like to draw from religious themes in my art,” Manyon said. “Religion has a lot of visually interesting things worldwide, and if you put some of that into the things you make, it kind of gives it more of a convoluted meaning — people have to kind of deconstruct and figure out what it means.”

While some of the artists present clear concepts of social awareness and personal battles, others are willing to let the viewer prescribe personal meanings themselves — making their individual pieces more than what meets the eye.

Each student uses a different medium to tell a unique story — allowing viewers a glimpse at life with disabilities, the chance to redefine personal gender norms and power through trauma or to deduce their own meaning.

The work of the artist is their own, but the art, itself, can impact many.

Story by Nicole Etchemendy

Photos by Brianna Finnegan & Britani Phelps

Design by Isabel Brune & Alex Brizee