Hayden Keene, a second semester student at Bakersfield College, has been creating art since he “could pick up a pencil.” He is currently taking sculpture as a class.
Keene’s mom is a painter and he believes that is where he got his talent for art. He started out drawing self-portraits and pictures of his family as a child. He said of these early drawings, “the hands are too big because you try to fit all the fingers in.” He also sculpted small projects such as Christmas ornaments and knick-knack birthday presents.
Keene finds sculpture to have a tangibility that he does not find in drawing. “I like sculpting a lot more. It’s like a drawing from a different perspective. A picture is always a flat piece and you only have one side of it. It’s a lot more tangible when it’s an actual three-dimensional object in front of you,” said Keene.
Keene also finds that mistakes can be easier to correct in sculpture. He said, “If your drawing and you’ve been working on it for half an hour, and you mess up on it with a pen mark. You’re out of luck. But it seems in sculpting there is a lot more you can do with it.”
Sculpture can have its own set of drawbacks. Keene describes one case where he lost time on a piece. “We were making vases and were making them out of a bowl at first and when I took my piece out of the bowl the bottom actual collapsed. So I had to start the bottom over and I lost a couple hours work, that was definitely frustrating.”
For one assignment, Keene chose to sculpt a gluttonous teapot. “She [the teacher] gave us all words, and my word was envious. I had trouble coming up with how a teapot could convey envious feeling. So I decided I’m going to make a very fat teapot. Then the teacups are going to be starving people and their mouth is going to be the mouth of the tea cup.”
On how he gets these ideas Keene says, “It’s mostly brainstorming. One idea will lead to another. It can be the shape of a tree. Everyone’s look at the shape of a tree and seen a face.”
Keene is currently majoring in psychology. Keene is choosing this as a major because human nature fascinates him. He also says that he “has a knack for it.” He said, “Friends, and sometimes complete strangers will come up to me and talk about their problems. I usually have pretty good advice and a pretty good understanding of how people act and why they act like that, so it seemed like a good field to go into.”
Keene finds life at BC better than life in high school. He said, “I actually enjoy the classes. You get to pick your own schedule. Teachers actually care because you’re paying for the classes. People actually want to be here. You don’t go to classes with people who think they are too cool for 10th grade.”
Keene is taking 16 units this semester. Yet he still finds time to work on his art. ” I enjoy doing art, as opposed to sitting around watching TV. It’s what I do. It’s my hobby. It’s what I do when I want to wind down. Some people go to the gym and punch out any stress, or some people play instruments to get their emotions out and I like to make art. I’m not ever going to stop having imagination. You’ll never stop seeing things that inspire you to make something.
“It’s what I enjoy doing. It’s my outlet. It’s definitely a passion I don’t ever see not doing it. Creating things is a part of who I am. I would never stop doing it regardless of what my job was.”
Keene plans on going to UCLA to get a four-year degree in psychology.