Artist Statement

My name is Paige Lilley, graphic designer and printmaker from The Colony, Texas, and this poster series is a visual reflection of my time here at Texas A&M University – Corpus Christi (TAMUCC) and how it has molded me into the artist and HUE-man being I am today. 

I utilized Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop and Procreate, an iPad app. Once I finalized and polished the drawings digitally I went to the print shop and did a 2 layer screen print process on black cardstock 140lb. paper from FrenchPaper.com. Once I completed printing, I scanned the paper back into the computer so the texture of the ink and paper is visible on screen. 

I chose to style these posters as prints because coming into school I had no idea I’d eventually add a studio art minor and take all the print classes alongside my design classes. It accidentally became another passion of mine very quickly. These classes were much more laid back in structure and prompts, we never were creating for a client in mind like we always did in our design classes. It also allowed me to improve my hand skills and get dirty. Looking back now these classes were almost therapeutic to me. A place where I could release my weird and wacky ideas that could never make an appearance in my client-based work. 

In print class I gravitated towards making patterns, mandalas, floral designs, and sometimes unrealistic cartoon characters. Since the first design course freshmen year to now, I have definitely grown and blossomed into a very colorful and expressive designer. When I entered the program I wasn’t sure if I’d made the right decision and I wasn’t quite sure how to express myself very well visually and even verbally. But printmaking and design classes combined gave me the tools and confidence to do so.

Lost Underground represents the beginning of college where I had just transferred to TAMUCC from Southwestern Oklahoma State University (SWOSU). I was recruited to SWOSU to play softball, but my knees blew out at the first practice and my career was pretty much over. So I decided to take that as a sign that I was not meant to go down that path. That dead path is represented by the skull seed planted underground. I was lost there for a second and had a really hard time processing the fact that my almost 15 year long softball career just came to an abrupt and traumatic ending. Rooted is about me finding my new passions and dreams at TAMUCC. That seed had begun to sprout and ground herself. My life prior to college was basically just sports and school, so I didn’t really have time to dive deep into my creative skills until college. Luckily, I believe I ended up taking the right path and that is represented in Wild Flower. Here I have developed and grown into a better woman, designer, and printmaker. Things really do happen for a reason.