There are different ways that people love to express themselves. For Cora Green, her favorite way is through art. Art was introduced to her at a young age.
“I started doing art at the age of four. My grandmother would always give me the Sunday comics and with Garfield or The Peanuts and I would sit and look at it and just start drawing it.”
This self-taught artist started liking art at that age and from there, it was always a part of her life, but it did not become something she thought she would be able to make a living on until recently:
“I would say in the last year to year and a half. I’ve had my moments where I thought was going to do it, but Tennessee was very behind in art and art wasn’t big in Tennessee until now. “
With artists, you usually can categorize their styles. What makes Cora unique is she does not really go by that structure: “My art you really cannot put in a category, but I do focus on monochromatic, which basically is you taking one color and using it. For example, I can take a blue and mix it with a little white or a little black to make the different shades of blue. Sometimes I do multiple colors, but usually I stick to one color. I also dabble with pencil or charcoal, so I don’t just do just one thing.”
As far as what Cora’s art means and what makes it different than others, Green had a unique response: “My art pulls on your emotion. I focus on the emotion of what people face everyday. So my paintings, you will not be able to walk away. You’re going to study it and think, ‘Hmm… wonder what the artist was thinking, or I have been here before.’ So it kind of plays with your mind a little bit.”
More than pulling emotions, Green hopes to do a few things with her work: “Art is very healing. Art has healed me with a lot of things I have went through in my life and it gives you that creative release from tension, stress, depression. It just gives you that release because you are putting all of that into the painting or drawing.”
What started as a way to express herself as a young girl has now turned into something Green not only loves but is trying to use to help people around her.
“My ultimate goal with my art is to get people tapped into their creative side. There is an alternative to helping yourself deal with situations in art. So basically, art gives you that mental release of frustration. I want my art to heal people. “
Along with healing and pulling at emotions, Green also hopes to eventually give kids another outlet.
“There’s a lot of kids and people that don’t have access to art. They want to do art but they don’t have the funds. So, I am trying to create a way to get people that wouldn’t have the opportunity to do art class to do this. There are too many kids out here that are doing things they don’t need to be doing and it boils down to their mental mind. They need something. Even if they can just come, sit down and write something. Just give them a release.”
With her paint parties like she recently had with a Lion King them and more things coming, Green is definitely making great strides towards introducing more people, young and old, to art, while healing people along the way.
