[Carolyn blowing air]
[upbeat music]
I can't help picking things up.
It's like, you see things on the ground
and they're so beautiful.
I have enormous collections in my house
of all the stuff I gathered.
So I just started pressing leaves.
Like, look at the edge on this.
You look at like the vein detail on it,
it's just so gorgeous.
Even the imperfections of them, the holes in them.
Look at this one.
Picked it up for the holes.
The stuff that insects have bitten and eaten,
it just makes it even better.
If you just look at a cedar bow lying on a sidewalk,
it just looks like a cedar bow.
But if you start to really, really look closely at it,
it's like all of these little,
almost caterpillar-like structure
and that's what I like to do,
is look at things really closely
because there's just like a universe
in each little thing that you look at.
Someday, I'd like to buy a microscope.
My name's Carolyn Garcia and I'm an artist.
I grew up in Cheyenne, Wyoming, surrounded by prairie.
It smelled like sage.
So I was able to just experience that landscape
and it just gives you an appreciation
of nature and of quiet.
It's important to me to remember that feeling
and try to be aware of things.
Illustration's always been a big part of my work.
I would describe it as very fairytale-like,
and most of the time,
everything's just made up outta my head.
There's always a story, you know,
it's steeped in being narrative.
This is about my love of ground cherries.
The title is "Empress of the Husk."
In fall, the papery pods that the fruit is in falls off.
So all that's left is this beautiful skeletal husk
and I've always thought it looked like a castle.
So I just wanted to have like a little creature
in the inside, and I wanted her to be royal in a way
but a child, you know, she's the Empress of the Husk.
There are these little filaments.
It's like they're little highlights.
If you're looking at it in sunlight, it's other worldly.
You know, working at this size,
it's like, you can get involved in this really intimate way
and you get really lost, and it's fun.
Each side of my family, I think, had, you know,
a lot of influence on what I do in different ways.
My mom's side of the family, my grandma Carolyn
who I was named after, was a wonderful writer
and my grandpa O'Neil, her husband,
he was a concert flutist and a painter and a writer.
My dad's side of the family, the Garcias and Archuletas,
are very artistic in practical arts.
They hunted, they fished and everything was made by hand
and also, the storytelling on that side of the family,
elaborate storytelling.
My Tia Maclovia, she was famous for her remedios.
Like, if you were sick in any way,
she had a tincture for you
and they were incredibly effective.
And everything in her house was cozy and comforting
and she had a little stove, little wood stove.
So it was like going to another time
and I was enthralled by it.
[gentle inspirational music]
There's a lot of natural details
and a lot of animals in what I do.
There's almost always plants in my drawings
and I think that that plays in to just like,
my Tia's remedios, you know, it was all made from plants.
And I think that there's nothing as valuable or mysterious
as the things that are easy to see on our planet.
I actually found a four-leaf clover when I was a kid,
I wished for a horse and the next day, I had a horse.
No kidding.
So, power of four-leaf clovers.
Come on, Scout.
Scout is my very precious dog and we walk almost every day
and I bring a lot of things home.
Another pine cone to add to my many pine cones.
I can't resist them.
Come on.
I pick up acorns, leaves, pieces of plants, rocks,
anything and everything.
I love when poppies are just about
to come out of their shell.
It's like, there's a really beautiful dress in there
about ready to pop out.
I take a lot of pictures too.
I'm always looking down.
I like to call it bug low,
like getting on your hands and knees
and looking at things on that scale.
Like, it's really fun to look underneath a mushroom
because mushroom gills are spectacular.
You can imagine what it looks like for a bug.
[gentle inspirational music]
I like to walk at all times, but it is fun to walk at night.
It's kind of spooky, but that's exciting.
And just the warm lit up windows that you see
in all the houses that you walk by just looks so cozy
and like, you imagine what people are having for dinner
or what their lives are like.
There's something so mysterious
and comforting about walking at night.
[gentle inspirational music]
This was inspired by the book, "The Photo Ark"
which was about animals that are about to be extinct.
There was a photo of a really bedraggled-looking rabbit
and it was the last of its species
and it just really got to me.
So I was thinking that this is the last one of its kind.
When I was working on this creature,
the thing that I was really enjoying about him
is I could really imagine how he would move.
All of these little spines would move to propel him forward.
[gentle inspirational music]
I was a really shy kid and drawing was an escape for me
and it still has that same effect.
It's a way to escape the world and create your own world.
[gentle somber music]
I haven't quite have a title for this one,
but I wanted it to be about possibility.
I was thinking it was someone very young
because I think when you're young,
it's like the world is just unopened
and everything's possible and you're unafraid
of what's before you.
Originally was gonna put something coming out of this egg
but then I decided it was better not to know.
You know, for everybody it's been a very rough
couple of years but something's coming out, something good.
It's important to me to notice things,
to notice little things
because there's vast amount of inspiration
in the smallest of things.
Look up, look down, it's everywhere,
things to notice, things that are important.
[gentle inspirational music]
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