Alyson Holevoet is pursuing a BFA in Ceramics and BA in Music and graduating in May 2024. Her medium is mainly ceramics. Being a double major in the arts, She feels that there isn't much of a question as to how she finds time for making art because she’s so engulfed in it in all areas of her life. That being said, as someone studying both music and ceramics, there were definitely times when she felt like she was having a hard time distinguishing between art for her academic endeavors--like her ceramics classes or her bassoon lessons--and her own creative practice, like making art for the sake of making or just for herself. Balancing this is something she's still actively working on, but she has found that consciously setting the time aside for her studio practices was important. Marking off the time in her calendar as "fun studio time hours" helped her to be more intentional about the time she would set aside every day or every week for her own creative endeavors.
Art is important to Alyson because it has always been a crucial outlet for her. As a child, throughout her life, and as a young adult, it's something she knows she can return to ground herself. It's how she expresses her feelings: her love, her fears, her loneliness. Making art allows her to be vulnerable in ways that are too difficult with words, and it's become a dominant avenue for her to communicate, make realizations, and flesh out her emotions. Since childhood, she has always been surrounded by what she’d consider her creatives. Her mom is a musician and a visual artist, and she taught us as kids to appreciate the arts--visual arts, theater, music, performative art, etc. She was classically trained in bassoon and has been on that track for 10+ years. It wasn't until high school that she really engaged herself with any sort of visual art practice. It was then that she took a few ceramics classes and really felt like she had an outlet, and she has been striving to find ways to continue with it ever since.
Alyson’s advice to aspiring artists is “Make art for yourself. If it makes sense to you, if it heals a part of you, if you can feel something from it, make it--the rest will come, give it time.”
Artist Statement: My current body of work conveys themes of dissociation, chaos, and loss of self in conjunction with the journey toward reconnecting with oneself. I create work that strives to heal my inner child, where I consider recognizing my own feelings as a technique that I utilize that is imperative to my work—letting myself share my mind and unguarded thoughts with you in the hope that you may feel comfortable acknowledging your own vulnerabilities as well.
The purpose of each piece is to unveil a form of self-reflection for the both of us. By noticing motifs of concealment and outburst, the intent of these compositions is to draw you in; urge you to explore and uncover what it is that needs to be revealed—both in the work, and within ourselves. Alyson Holevoet 2023
Follow her on Instagram: @a.hole.ceramics
