We were lucky to catch up with Ruth Monjaras recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Ruth, thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

Most, if not all, of the art that I create and display have meaning behind them. I’ve always used art as a way to channel and express my innermost struggles and emotions and sometimes even as a way to resolve those issues. However, if I had to pick, I would have to say that the most meaningful project I’ve worked on to date is my “Identity Crisis” series. It’s basically my first baby haha!

Like a lot of people, I’ve struggled with mental health issues that affect my self-esteem and sense of self, but a lot of those issues really peaked during my time in college. My college experience was by no means easy and my depression and anxiety made it hard to make friends, speak up for myself, get involved, manage my time, etc. It was a very emotionally volatile period in my life and I constantly questioned whether or not I was good enough to be in college or to even be an artist.

In the Spring semester of my Sophomore year in college, I took a Global Perspectives in Art course where one of the projects we worked on was bookbinding. I created an accordion fold book and decided to create collages for each page. I didn’t think much about the theme or what direction I wanted to go with the collages, so I just started blindly working on the first page, and then the second, and then the third. By then, I realized that I was naturally working on pieces that revolved around my issues with self identity. Questions like “Who am I?” and “How do I Find Myself?” are found in my book. This was the origin of my “Identity Crisis” series.

“Identity Crisis” represents a lot of firsts for me. After completing the book, there was a creative fire that took over and a flood of ideas rushed into my head and into my sketchbook where I was able to flesh out my intentions a bit more. It was the first time I truly faced myself and my inner turmoil and seriously expressed it in my art. It was also the first time I created something in my personal style. Before this, the art that I was creating was purely skill-focused rather than self-expression. I had convinced myself into believing that realism was the only “serious” way to approach art, but I worked with heavy line work and bright colors and have not looked back since! It really helped me find my creative voice and push myself into creating bigger works. I went on to have a Solo Exhibition in the TWU Student Gallery for this series in 2019 and 2020 and submitted one of the pieces for the John Weinkein Student Juried Exhibition where it won 3rd place for the undergrad category!

Since its creation, I’ve become better at being aware and in-tune with myself and my headspace. Once I was able to figure out my creative voice, I started creating more intuitively and eventually went on to work on my second series “The Motions of My Emotions”!

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 am a queer, nonbinary artists based in Texas and I’ve been drawing pretty much since I could hold a pencil. I didn’t start seriously considering pursuing a career in art until I was in high school. I knew going in that building a sustainable career in art was going to be difficult, but boy it has been more difficult than I could imagine haha!

It’s been a year since I graduated from my undergrad program and, truth be told, I haven’t really built up my career in the way that I wanted to. The pandemic really affected things in a way that I hadn’t expected and took away a lot of opportunities for me to grow in my career. Currently, I work part-time as a museum guide in a local history museum and create art on the side. I take commissions here and there and create personal art whenever I can. Recently I’ve reworked on some old paintings and created new pieces to prepare for some submissions to several different exhibitions.

My art focuses a lot on emotion but as far as my craft goes, I specialize in portraiture and use acrylic paint as my main medium, however, I also work in watercolor/ink, Prisma color, linocut print, and pen. As of right now, my commissions aren’t open since not having a studio space has hindered my creative process, but because of limited space, I’ve been practicing drawing digitally and am considering opening commissions for digital portraits and selling prints and stickers soon. For the meantime I am working on building up my platform!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

There was a long period of time after I graduated that I wasn’t creating. Due to financial troubles, I moved back home with my family so I didn’t have much space to work on. While I was in college I had my own studio space and lots of resources, but once I moved back all of that was gone. At that time I was also working a highly stressful grocery retail job, so I was always tired and it just overall just severely impacted my mental health. I was burnt out, depressed, fatigued, and was also processing through a painful breakup from a long term relationship of almost 5 years.

It was so hard to motivate myself to create anything, even just a small sketch or doodle. However, in August of 2021, I was hired as a museum guide at a local history museum where I moved from a toxic work environment to a healthy one. I didn’t immediately quit my job at the grocery store, so I juggled both jobs, but for my mental well being I ended up quitting my grocery store job. Soon thereafter, I slowly started to become motivated again. I made my own dismantlable studio space at home on our dining table and living room area. Now that the weather has been warmer, I’ve also started painting in our back patio area as well! It’s definitely not easy to work this way; I worked on a linocut print on the dining table from the carving to the inking and printing and it was super difficult but I was so happy to just finally be creating again!

I don’t want to stop creating just because of limited space and art block. I try to find different ways to make creating art more accessible to me while still maintaining my creative voice and have been having fun experimenting. Art is my lifeblood, even if I don’t make a sustainable career out of it, even selling just one piece to a friend is enough to bring me joy.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

There are many ways to help support artists and creatives. In this age of technology and social media, it’s so much easier to reach a larger audience but because of the vast amount of people sharing and posting it’s easy for content to be buried. One of the most important things we can do to help is to like, share, follow, and interact with artists’ posts! Engagement with content helps to grow their platforms! Ask for permission if you are inclined to repost their art, but make sure to also credit them and make said credits easily accessible!

Some other ways to help support creatives is to call out any art thieves if you see people reposting art with no credit. Unfortunately, there are many cases where a lot of creators get content stolen and the reposts get more engagement that the actual artists themselves. Try and commission or buy things from artists, within your own personal budget of course, even if it’s just a sticker or print. Go to art festivals, conventions, exhibitions, etc. if you are able to and support local artists!

Nice comments and words of encouragement are also a nice way to support artists. It might not seem like a big deal to some but I believe that a little kindness goes a long way. It’s important for artist and creatives to know who their audience is so community engagement, whether its local or online, encourages artists to keep going in their craft.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://huevo-triste.weebly.com/
• Instagram: http://instagram.com/huevo_triste
• Other: Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTdcXNkbb/ Email: [email protected]