Digital artist聽聽learned as an adult she had a condition called 鈥渇ace blindness,鈥澛爉eaning her brain processes faces differently than typical聽brains and, as a result, she has a hard time recognizing people. 鈥淲hen I learned聽this it felt聽like discovering that everyone around me had X-Men powers,鈥 she said.
In response to this revelation, she started studying faces, really looking at them. This led to doodling faces, which led to drawing faces. She now is about halfway to her goal of creating聽聽of faces, a challenge she invented for herself, in part to show her art students at聽聽that she can walk the walk鈥攖hat she works hard for her craft, as she expects them to do. Young also teaches at聽聽during the summer. She spoke about how her drawing muscles are getting stronger because of聽her mission to create 100 drawings to聽. She uses Adobe Draw on her iPad and Adobe Illustrator on聽her Macbook Pro. 鈥淣o filters, no tracing,鈥 she said, 鈥渏ust marks on a surface, and from time to time I hit 鈥榰ndo.’鈥
Young earned her B.F.A. in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. At the tail end of her college career, she picked up a stylus and dove into digital art. She also holds an Master of Science in Art Education from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. She will show聽her images at the Grubbs Gallery in January. A reception with the artist is planned for January 6 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
In order to meet her goal, she works during spare moments. 鈥淚 have to squeeze in drawing time whenever I can,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 do it on the bus, during lunch at school, when I play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends (because I鈥檓 a giant dork). Sometimes I post photos of the weird places I draw on my聽. My favorite 鈥業 draw everywhere, man鈥 moment was when I found myself completely alone in a movie theater this past September. Since there was no one around me that would object, I just drew on my iPad and watched聽The Big Sick聽with my huge tub of popcorn and my feet across two seats. It was glorious.鈥