ManicWorld Magazine

Filling the Extra Space: Painting What Science Can’t Explain

‘I was interested in what was falling through the cracks, what was obvious to us as humans but was harder to describe with science.‘

– You have a few degrees in the sciences but you’re excelling in art, could you explain the transition?

In my second to last year at UC Santa Cruz, I had a realization. I had graduated highschool at fourteen and had been attending some kind of college ever since. I had attended a junior college until I was 19 and had left with multiple degrees, in Math, Science, and Liberal Arts. I transferred to UC Santa Cruz and took classes in Math and Neuroscience. I love these subjects and they opened up new avenues of study that I had never even heard of. In my Neuroscience classes, I learned about neuroplasticity and what emotion does to our brains. In my Math classes, I learn a language capable of describing and quantifying almost everything.  I was very close to completing my degrees in Mathematics and Neuroscience when I had a realization. Yes, math and science are ways that we can understand each other and the world around us. We can describe and read what is written but I wanted to be one who writes. I was interested in what was falling through the cracks, what was obvious to us as humans but was harder to describe with science. I felt the only way to do this was through art. I had always taken art classes alongside my other coursework but I had never considered its importance. It had always felt personal, something not for others to see. But now I wanted to be seen, to be part of the conversation. 

– Which of your pieces do you feel took the most out of you?

Dichot is a piece that I made somewhat recently that took a lot out of me. I was really struggling with the emotion and that led to a bad painting that was eventually a good painting. I wanted it to say something specific but I was having a hard time even telling myself what that was. It was about an impossible yearning to go back to a mistake. One that I would not change if I had the chance but that I wish could. I had to get my emotions in line before i could get my brush strokes in line.

– Do you think a piece is ever truly finished? 

None of my paintings are ever finished. I always want to change a few things but I hold myself back. I think there is beauty in the unfinished, there is a story that is told. If I were to fix and finish them, It would change into another painting that I would probably still want to change. Instead, I stop painting when I like them and move on to a new painting to continue the story. In what ways can your pieces be best experienced? How do you experience your pieces?

– What do you think of the idea that because a piece can be interpreted in endless ways, it is never really complete?

I always find new ways to interpret a piece and new meanings that I add to my pieces after they are completed, while the pieces are done changing physically, their meaning never does.

– Do you think your art takes from you or it gives to you or both? How so?

Both. It gives me an outlet for my emotions that I need to work through but it also gives me those emotions back. I feel like I make a deposit of emotion and then it slowly gives me that emotion back bit by bit every time I engage with it, sometimes clearer, sometimes in a way I didn’t expect.

-Last but not least, do you think the glass is half full, half empty, or just twice as big as needed?

The glass is twice as big as it needs to be. We are able to have so much more that we could ever possibly need. The real challenge isn’t filling the glass, it’s learning to sit with the extra space, with the unrealized possibilities. We need to be aware of our own glass but also of the pitcher filling everyone’s glass. We need to make sure we don’t take too much without giving something back.

Join the Newsletter

Connect with C. S. Lambert

To follow C. S. Lambert, you can find social media profiles here:

Socials
Instagram

Website
C.S.Lambert

Read other articles in the issue