August 23, 2021

SAN JOSE, CALIF.— To Luiza Sevilla, a senior attending Silver Creek High School, art to them is their entire world–a place to seek comfort from all the overwhelming occurrences around them. Their coping mechanism.

At a young age, Sevilla wasn’t accompanied by many friends. Although the reason was not that others didn’t want to approach them, they just struggled to communicate their feelings and thoughts to a group of strangers. Being reserved at a young age made it harder to become closer with other kids at the time. The awareness of not being able to connect with individuals had led them to isolate themselves, making them prefer to spend their time being enveloped in their own space rather than playing with other children. From these circumstances, drawing was their only escape. Drawing helped to distract themselves from all their problems.

As time passed, their reason for art had grown to, as they describe it, “a form of expression.” Instead of a distraction, it was a way to let out personal feelings without having the pressure of being judged. It was the very motivation to help them continue practicing and improving their skills. 

Being a self taught artist, Sevilla has expressed that by comparing their illustrations now from back when they were in sixth grade, their art has become significantly more “emotional.” They said this due to the built up experiences they had gained from those challenging years and applied them onto their own creative, original pieces. It was not just some fun light-hearted fanart anymore, but their drawings had developed with a bigger meaning behind it.

Sevilla states that they mainly love and appreciate art so much because they see it as, “a healthy way of venting…a healthy way of dumping your feelings without hurting anyone.”