Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Alisia Gruendel. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alisia, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I had just turned three years old, and it was my first time going to a movie theater. My mother had taken me and my one year old sister down to visit my father in Texas. He had been reactivated by the Army National Guard post 9/11 and was stationed down in Texas as an instructor at a military police academy. Now please, bear with me as this a retelling of sorts. We were spending time together as a family and my parents decided it would be a fun idea to take me and my sister to see our very first movie in theaters. Dreamworks had just released a new feature animated film about a horse named Spirit. After we saw the film, I was apparently so in love with the character I desperately wanted to take him home with me, but only being three, I didn’t understand the concept just yet. I cannot say how many times I’ve heard that story told back to me. For a good portion of my life I was a bit embarrassed by my theatrics and crying fit over an animated horse, but as I got older I understood things a little clearer. It was that moment I fell in love with storytelling. It fueled so much of my existence until I was asked the question we all get asked when we come of age: what do you want to be when you grow up? I’ve always been a creative, doodling when I shouldn’t, drawing on napkins and coloring on the back of spare paper. But at the age of sweet sixteen, I realized I could be what I always was: an artist. My unwavering love and adoration for a good story persist to this day. I could give people awe inspiring, mind blowing, sensation of wonderment with my art the same as the artists who created the stories I love to this day.
Now as a fully-fledged young adult I continue my creative endeavors, my teenage self set her mind to the task, but we did it to make that little girl from all those years ago smile.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I love the exposure I’ve gained through my journey to become the artist I am today. When it came time to decide the trajectory of my future, I found myself studying at my parent’s alma mater, the University of Connecticut. There I learned the in’s and out’s of the animation pipeline. I was taught and advised by a former Dreamworks employee who actually worked on the film that started it all for me, Dennis Recchia. The very first day that I met Dennis was accepted students day. I had expressed my concerns having never touched any sort of 3D animation software before committing to UConn, to which he responded, “You can learn to push buttons, click the right settings, but its harder to teach the creative eye. I saw your work. You have an eye.”
My time at UConn was endearing. I carry so many of the lessons I learned with me to this day, both professionally and personally. Unfortunately, my time on campus was cut a bit short due to the global pandemic. I had to finish my senior year of undergrad from the study in my childhood home. But all was not lost. I graduated Cum Laude and worked freelance for two character-building years and then decided to go back to school and earn my masters degree. This time, I would be studying in the historic city of Savannah, Georgia at SCAD.
The Savannah College of Art and Design had initially been on my list of schools when I was applying for my BFA, but I was not quite ready to leave home yet. Since growing a little older, wiser, and more emotionally mature than ever, I was more than ready. And oh how amazing things have been since becoming a graduate illustration student. The emphasis is on illustrative problem solving. Whether it be tackling marketing and advertisements based illustrations, coming up with designs for children’s books, or drawing directly from life with no take-backs, utilizing my background in animation had helped me achieve more depth in my work. Even as a teaching intern under a professor in a completely different departments than my own, my skills helps me engage with students and provide them branch into an adjacent discipline. I also find it paramount to utilize my own unique life experiences to fuel my creative problem solving by tapping into my travel experiences from sailing and scuba diving in the Caribbean, or walking cobble-stone streets in Europe.
My ultimate goal is to poise myself as a globally minded artist with the knowledge and artistic skills to create visual storytelling moments that audiences around the world can appreciate and enjoy to the fullest. It is this mindset that fuels my masters thesis, focused on the value of cultural inclusivity and its impact on visual storytelling. My research recalls my undergraduate exposure of globalization, which I now contextualize using entertainment narratives; I make case studies of modern examples of subpar use of culture in a storytelling capacity versus those which set the bar. All of this is used to help me better understand how to set myself and my work up for success as I create my own visual narrative that explores cultural blending, utilizing a fusion of my aforementioned research as well as personal knowledge and experiences.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Art is one of the oldest crafts in human history. It has kept our story going long after those who created it have left this earth. In more recent events, I’m also reminded of the power artists have in society. We can make the imperceivable, the intangible concepts real. We’ve become a bit distracted. And don’t get me wrong, some of the advancements we’ve made are truly awe inspiring. But we need to remember we are all people. The human race, in this together like any other species on our planet. Artists fill in the gaps of our lives with imagery and sensation. Let art back into our lives. Really let it back in. Make the world we live in beautiful and decadent, overflowing with human craftsmanship. Let artists, human artists, continue this age-old pursuit in every aspect of our lives and we might just see things as we once did.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
As I was growing up, I didn’t know much about the world or life at large. But I knew art, and making art made me happy. That is what drives me. In a world where it is so easy to get distracted, where it is in fact the point of certain applications to steal my attention, being happy is my nonnegotiable. It won’t always be easy, if it ever has been, but it is the worthiest cause I can put my effort into. Because if I am genuinely happy, what I create will project that into the world, and if that reaches even a single person, it’ll all be worth it.
So my creative mission is to be happy making art.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.alisiagruendel.com/
- Instagram: @art.gruendel
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisia-gruendel/
