{"id":14338,"date":"2020-09-10T10:36:48","date_gmt":"2020-09-10T14:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/?p=14338"},"modified":"2020-10-16T16:29:22","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T20:29:22","slug":"from-books-to-hoodies-transylvania-alumna-thrives-on-give-and-take-in-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transy.edu\/1780\/2020\/09\/from-books-to-hoodies-transylvania-alumna-thrives-on-give-and-take-in-art\/","title":{"rendered":"From books to hoodies, Transylvania alumna thrives on give and take in art"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
\u201cEmotional Management\u201d \u2014 white-haired girl surrounded by colorful flowers (by Annelisa Hermosilla)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

During the early days of the coronavirus shutdown, Transylvania alumna and visual artist Annelisa Hermosilla needed a project and connection. She\u2019d recently finished her collaborative work illustrating \u201cUnder the Ocelot Sun\u201d<\/a> with Jeremy Paden, a poet and Transylvania Spanish professor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking around her house in Virginia, she spied a lifeless hoodie, that ubiquitous swathe of quarantine couture. She set to work re-imaging it as a canvas and posting the image on Instagram with an invitation to her followers. In no time, friends and family began to ask for hoodies and T-shirts of their own, and a singular business \u2014 and connection \u2014 was born. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hermosilla, who graduated in 2018, was happy to oblige the requests, in part because her art is about relationships. She is drawn to exploring the interactions between people, things, memories and emotions, and the meanings within them. In the process, she\u2019s learned how interpretations are as distinctive as the beholder of the art. In the case of the hoodies, the artwork became her take on the person ordering the hoodie, rather than just a surface representation of them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat inspires me,\u201d she explains, \u201cis my perception of that person and how I know them \u2014 my experience with them and how they seem to me. That\u2019s what I create.\u201d She takes time to talk (virtually) with each person who places an order. Most give her free rein. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

That sense of people\u2019s trust in her creativity began at an early age. Hermosilla\u2019s mother, who has actively encouraged her art from the time of her first painting in kindergarten, gave Hermosilla creative license to draw on the walls at home. Never a reckless or idly scribbling child, she recalls, \u201cI was serious.\u201d She would plan, draw and then fill in the images with color. <\/p>\n\n\n\n