Using art as a self expression

Art comes in many different forms and styles and art could help people express themselves and how they feel. It’s important for people to always express themselves and be who they are. They shouldn’t feel ashamed to show their creative side and their way of creating art because behind every art there’s always a meaning. Senior Jessica Macaspac finds art fun and also uses art to help express herself. Macaspac started designing her own shirts on August 13, 2021. She hand makes her shirts using fabric paint and determines the cost depending on how long it takes to make. An estimated amount of how much she sells them is $27 to $30.

 Like any other artists out there, Macaspac had a little inspiration as to designing shirts such as Sanrio and Monchichi; Saniro is a Japanese company that bases their characters on kawaii Japanese pop culture which means cute in Japanese and Monchichi is a stuffed monkey toy and it’s a Japanese brand. She considers this a hobby although in her words “it’s time consuming and I want to make my shirts affordable but then I sometimes spend way too much time on them.”

Although Macaspac sold about five shirts so far, she does plan on doing this in the future in hopes of her art growing because that could financially support herself into designing more products such as things you could wear like socks, pants, dresses, etc she also mentions things like stickers and figurines that could be made in the future. Macaspac sells shirts to show that art can sell and eventually it could help sustain herself financially by living off of something she enjoys doing .

When speaking about art, people don’t realize how hard it is to sell art and make it go big. Macaspac said, “Art is gambling because not everyone is going to understand your self- expression and how you work around in this crazy world and you might be a starving artist.” When selling art it may not be as easy as a person could expect it to be, for example their art may not blow up and in Macaspac’s terms they would become a “starving artist”, which is why she believes it’s a gamble to pursue art. 

When promoting art Macaspac uses social media such as Instagram but that not only helps her promote her shirts, word of mouth is also a big factor that plays into people knowing about her shirts. check out the shirts Macaspac designed by hand on her instagram @mhm_nice_sir.