Alexandria City High School senior Max Vilar-Ramos has been interested in the arts all their life. This month, they’re featured on the Theogony comics page.
“I was inspired by kids books and the colors in them,” Vilar-Ramos said. “I always wanted to be inside of one, so I created a comic that I could live that dream out of.”
Q: What art classes at ACHS do you currently take?
A: I’m taking Ceramics I and AP 2-D Art and Design.
Q: When did you first become interested in art?
A: I remember being in elementary school and being really upset because I wasn’t as good at art as my other classmates. I really wanted to be better, and so I got obsessed with art from there. I made it my goal to be better at art.
Q: What type of mediums do you use in your art?
A: My goal is to work with everything, but my usual medias are visual, like paintings, collages, doodles and drawings. I feel like I mainly use a mixture of water color, acrylic paint, and colored pencil. Those three are the ones I work best in, but I use a lot of different things. Every time I’m making a piece, I try to go into it doing something new, if that makes any sense. That also applies with my media, so I try to mix it up every single time, even if I do find myself going back to those main three.
Q: What would you say draws you to acrylic, watercolor, and colored pencil?
A: I feel like they’re easiest to use, and they’re most available. If you walk into an Art I classroom, there’s a bunch of acrylic paint, colored pencil, and watercolor that’s decent enough that it’ll get people interested.
Q: What makes art important to you?
A: It allows me to put my ideas beyond words. I find myself expressing myself very visually, and I don’t do a very good job expressing myself verbally, I don’t find myself being very good at writing either. I find a lot of emotional correlation with visual art.
Q: Are you in any art programs outside of school?
A: I do National Art Honors Society. I just started last year, it’s open to juniors and seniors. I started when I was a junior, and I’m hoping to do some sort of leadership this year. I also did some Art League stuff at the Torpedo Factory in middle school, which was super great. I did that mostly during COVID, because I wasn’t in class and wasn’t able to have the 1 on 1 with a teacher who could actually help me develop my technical skills. That definitely helped me a lot, but I also just did it as a hobby.
Q: Is art still a hobby to you? Or would you ever be interested in pursuing it professionally?
A: I want to look into doing both. I definitely am looking into doing art professionally. I want to go to art school, or focus my major in art, whether it’s fine art, art education, or even graphic design. I definitely want to go into art, but still make personal art on the side as well.
Q: How do you decide what you want to make?
A: Pinterest, my friends, the internet, other people, other creatives. Seeing how other people express themselves visually inspires me a lot.
Q: Do any specific arts inspire you?
A: Frida Kahlo. I remember going to visit her house when I was younger, and her art reality stuck with me. How she told the story of her life within her pieces, I think her storytelling really inspired me.
Q: Is there any advice you would give to other artists?
A: Just keep doodling, that’s my main thing. I’m serious. If you keep doodling, you’ll find that you doodle things over and over again. When you look at the things you doodle over and over again, you find what you like to draw. A lot of people find themselves disliking art because they feel like they’re bad at it, but when you find something you like to draw, it gets you to love art.
Q: How does your art reflect yourself and the world around you?
A: I feel like I draw what I love and what I like. I make art that has to do with things I really love. I guess it does reflect the world around me, but it more so reflects me as a person.
Q: Do you have anywhere we can find you?
A: Maxartistarc on instagram, that’s where I post everything I do.
Additional Artwork provided by Max Vilar-Ramos:
