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Short Version:
Cuban-American artist Christina Serra was born in Florida, USA, and now lives and creates art in Switzerland. She is fairly average on all accounts, however, she has a slightly higher drive to make art and things than the average person. She makes textile mixed media art, paints, weaves, spins fibers into yarn, dyes wool, carves wood, designs, sews, reads, gardens (battles slugs), goes on adventures, learns, pesters local historians, collects antique teacups (for daily use!), draws, felts, embroiders, makes messes, watches people, stays sleep deprived, etc, and devours dark chocolate. Check out her Instagram for weekly project updates and photos. Long version: Christina was born into a Cuban-American family in Miami, Florida, but grew up in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. She has been an active creative her entire life, first discovering the thrill of drawing and making things at a young age. It was mostly her mother who encouraged her on this path, providing, when she was able, brushes, paints, pencils, rawhide, a sewing machine, and so many other tools and materials. Christina was known in her small rural school for her creative works, sometimes being encouraged by teachers, sometimes being scolded for drawing in class (the teachers don't always understand that drawing helps the information stick better!). While having an intense interest in practicing art and making things is hugely rewarding, it also meant that she had a hard time fitting in, and learned early on how to not depend on the approval and acceptance of others, but to see and feel her own path instead. As far as what inspires Christina, early on, it was the natural world, especially horses, unicorns, cats, and dogs. The simple fluid lines in the movements and forms of these familiar animals created a desire to move and be like them... mostly translated into art and making. Later on, during the teen years, like so many people of that age, Christina was deeply struck by the pain of the world, the hopelessness, violence, suffering, and coarse uncaring behavior of bystanders. This sparked a whole different flavor of creative output, much darker, more dramatic, exploring themes of pain, the myth of hell, and the characteristics of people who do evil acts. After becoming a mother, the changes in hormones, priorities and views shifted the inspiration focus again. Christina focused again on life, slowly returning to previous subjects, but with a more in-depth searching for meaning, connection, communication and place in culture and history. Now that her children are nearly grown, and with more years and experience under her belt, interesting conversations with like and unlike-minded people, and a breadth of life-challenges, Christina's works look very different than they did years ago. The archetypes and symbols, first discovered in her early 20s have gained more meaning. Being able to explore historic museums, architecture, literature, art, fashion and thought, Christina continues to find limitless, almost distracting, inspiration in everything around her. Currently, Christina rants about faulty design, bad user experience / design, soulless modern grey cement structures, the dreadfully boring modern product design trends, soulless politicians and policies, and about not being able to eat as much cake as she used to when she was younger. She engages regularly with the costuming (historical and historic-inspired) communities on Instagram, visits historic museums, and generally tries to engage people in conversations about Mythology, human behavior, archetypes, manufacturing processes throughout history, UX/UI design, and gardening. She lives in Switzerland with her husband, one of the kids and two very fluffy fur balls. Thank you for being here Media images/info page HERE
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Contact
E-Mail: serramakesthings at gmail dot com
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