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This morning was thick with white fog.
Pale sand shifted beneath my feet,
blank clouds surrounding.
I ran along the Ocean's edge
into formlessness and emptiness.
The Spirit of the Creator
hovered over the waters of the deep.
I ran through the soft shadows
of Seurat’s hazy conte drawings.
Mysterious and luminous, without a single line.
I ran through the gentle woozy melodies of a
Sigur Ros song. A slow paced voice,
undulating Latin tones.

When I got tired I stopped running,
and faced my friend the Sea.
I shed my outer layer of clothing,
and waded out, with the fog swirling at my back.
I washed the charcoal from beneath my fingernails
and thought about the beginning of time:
how the formless void of the deep
was divided into heaven and earth.
Now, the fog at my torso blurs that divide.
Water and sky and heaven intermingle at my fingertips.
I stand still in the middle of the Ocean.

It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

This belongs in a graduation speech...

We are artists because we can't help it.
I'll never forget the first week of school here.
I discovered that everyone doodled on their notes in class.
That the bathroom graffiti was often a deep, witty dialogue, accompanied by...creative... illustrations.
Around campus, the student-made flyers advertising yard sales, shows and school events were so beautiful that people would steal them to use as wall decorations.
I'll never forget the first time I turned down an alley and stood dumbfounded in front of a gorgeous linoleum print, pasted on the side of a dumpster.

We can't help but make art.

That first week of school, I knew I was home. I was surrounded by right-brained thinkers and visually minded people; people who got me, even if they spoke another language then me. I was no longer the weird one in my group of friends. Here, when you gush over a Helvetica font on a road-sign, people gush with you. When you lament over a ruined painting or a lost sketchbook, people understand the pain, and mourn with you. When you notice a striking shade of yellow in particular leaf, people will stop and admire it too, and maybe even lend you their camera.

I'll never forget the sense of community I felt here from the beginning.

I wonder how many times we've all looked out our classroom windows and drawn the catholic church on campus. I wonder what our total sum of all nighters has been so far. I wonder if every single one of us has looked at our peers work and wished we had that kind of talent, even though we do.

And yeah, I wonder if we'll all be able to have "jobs" that have to do with art in the future. But one thing I don't wonder about at all is if we'll end up as artists.
We just can't help that.

Sophomore Painting - DONE.

My goal this semester has been to make work that is about a communal identity rather then my own.

To find imagery representative of my community, collaboration was imperative. Using text messaging, facebook, and a lesson taught at an after school center, I asked a wide range of people one question: "What is most important to you?"

Text messaging and facebook allowed me to obtain perspectives from outside of my immediate geography. After logging answers from my friends and family, I had a hierarchal list of the most important things in people's lives. I found symbols that represented each of these words and created a group of abstract acrylic paintings on various sizes of canvas and masonite.

After these nonrepresentational paintings, I executed a local mural. I originally wanted to work at a place of high esteem, but the possibility of renovation and revitalization in my community was too strong. Mount Royal Elementary-Middle, a local "arts integration" school, wanted a mural in their theater. Because of their focus on the arts, I painted mentors teaching children dance, music, theater and visual arts.

Next I decided to implement my big question at the Police Athletic League's after-school center in my neighborhood. I asked the students to write a list of things that are important to them. They chose their best idea from the list and drew a symbol of it. I incorporated these symbols into abstract circular watercolor paintings, as well as a mural designed for the main room at the PAL center. At least forty kids from about ten different Baltimore schools looked on as "The Things That Are Important To Us" went up on their wall.

I had finally achieved my goal of visually unifying the identity of my community (both abstractly and representationally) while beautifying public spaces. However I was not content. Ironically enough, I was left with a longing to express my own identity.

When I looked back at all of the answers to my big question, I finally realized that I'm interested in making the personal universal. The most frequent answers given were friends and family. Personal, tangible relationships. So that is what I painted. My final piece, titled "Holding Painting," is all that man has ever really made art about - the personal, the relational, and ultimately the universal.

I found this in one of my many notebooks today.

I am where I am.
I am where I should be,
where I need to be.
I am creating.
That means I'm alive.

I will not put my creation up
next to yours right now
And please do not put yours up next to mine.
Yours is so lovely.
But comparing is NOT
what making is all about.
It is about what is innate.

I create.
It means I'm alive.
Some people are living, but they're standing still,
growing lukewarm and moldy.
Sometimes they walk backwards.
But I can't do that.
I must walk forward.
I must swim far from shore.

To me, this has to do with being human.
The Creator has made us creators too.
He has put this ability in my mind
and in my hands.
It is how I am made.
It is how I reflect Him,
who has also created the ocean and clam shells and the sun.

The ocean can't restrain it's tides.
The clam shell can't stop producing pearls.
The sun can't stop expelling warmth.
I can not grow stagnant.
I revel in being alive and creating.

How to convey a thought?

Words are pointless if they're mine.
Meaning comes from the divine.

"Teenagers should never write about love..."

I wish
for a lot.

It's a bad habit.

My mind projects from past to future and back again, as I go from day to day.

I push an old metal and glass door away from my body, it's bells ring overhead. I leave Carmelita's mexican restaraunt after making a reservation for later this evening, and walk down the strip mall sidewalk towards my parent's van. My fingers wrap around the car key and the soft plastic keychain. The sun is low. Before the warm orange twilight even reaches my skin, my mind plays it's usual game, and I loose the present to the past; to the flights of my imagination.

He would be walking next to me, maybe following on the gravel parking lot, the two of us exchanging common words. I can picture him clearly. He's so beautiful - an arresting smile, adorable hair, an effortless body. I smile with every glance of him. My face is lit up by the strong goldenrod sun and purple shadows are cast on my neck. A balmy breeze pushes though my hair. I know he would stare and smile too.

He's never kept his captivation secret. For years now, no matter where we go, he'll find a moment to slip a few perfect grinning words into my ear.... how he's never seen anything more beautiful in his entire life....how I deserve fame and a million dollars for looking like that....he says that I don't even understand how much he loves me.

Once, in a field of mud, we spent almost an hour freeing a four wheeler that I drove into a hole. While his friend slammed the gas, throwing mud all over our faces and sweaters, he looked at me and said that he's never been more attracted to me then he was at that moment. We both laughed at how absurd and true it was.

Once when we were counselors at a summer camp, he walked next to me while we escorted a flock of 11 year olds to the lake. Making no eye contact, he carried on in very plain speak about how he had a crush on a certain camp counselor, and how he was dying to let her know, but couldn't, because there were rules against public displays of affection. While kids swam around us like sharks in the green lake, jumping on our backs trying to pull us under, he cooly suggested different ways we could escape from the sweet dears for a quick minute.

The metal clap of the passenger door returns my focus to the dashboard in front of me. I slouch lower into the driver's seat. Sitting in the parking lot, the steering wheel, the grey velour seats, the whole car is so still; I can feel the sun moving, sinking quickly outside. I don't know how I got so lucky, and so unlucky to be where I am now: with him, and without him.

I wish for a lot...

Biography!

Stephanie McKee was born and raised in St. Petersburg, FL, where she studied visual arts in middle and high school. She is currently a sophomore painting major at the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she first discovered the field of community arts. As a freshman, Stephanie helped establish the community arts project "A Neighborhood Called Baltimore," which lead to her involvement in Artblocks Inc. Ms. McKee maintains an active role in her community by interning at local art centers and after school programs, working as assistant to the Arts Integration Coordinator at Mt. Royal Elementary Middle School, and coordinating service and volunteerism programs at Maryland Institute.

As of late, Stephanie has been establishing herself as a muralist in both St. Petersburg and Baltimore, completing numerous public and private murals since 2004. In her spare time, she enjoys spending time with her friends and family, as well as creative writing, dance, theology, talking to strangers, and of course, painting.