Allie Shehorn is an art major with big plans. Receiving second place at Via Arte this year, 21-year-old Shehorn has studied art her whole life.

“Ever since I was little, I knew I wanted to do something with art . I just love the freedom of it,” Shehorn said. “You can do whatever you want, and people can interpret it in their own ways. My art represents me.”

According to Shehorn, Via Arte is when she really gets into her work. “That’s when I get my mojo going, and I get all cocky. It definitely makes me want to get more into showing my work.”

After saving up her money for a year, Shehorn went to Paris for five weeks over the summer to study art.

“All the museums there changed me. You walk into them, and all the art is so big,” she said. “You see the paintings on the ceilings, and it’s breathtaking. It made me want to draw and paint bigger.”

Before Shehorn went to Paris, she said that she was commissioning people and almost got sponsored to draw portraits. She is currently in intermediate ceramics working on an assignment of multiples, and she said that her piece represents life’s emotions such as peoples’ happiness and discouragement. Her favorite piece so far, though, is a ceramic head piece that she did last year of a girl looking up, and her whole head is covered in flowers.

“It was funny because I had only been in ceramics for like two weeks, and people kept commenting and asking me how many years I had been doing this,” she said.

Shehorn said the toughest thing about being an artist is trying to interpret her thoughts into the art itself.

“Your imagination must show through the work. Creating and using that imagination to make your art different is the challenge. Anyone can copy but to make something your own is creative.”

While Shehorn isn’t sure yet what she wants to do with art professionally, she is thinking about becoming an art teacher.

“I would love to just paint for a living, but since there isn’t any real job in art, and I need to earn money, I figure I can do whatever I want with teaching. I would love to own my own studio one day and get more into pastels.”

Shehorn said that she does every type of art, but she particularly enjoys working with pastel paintings. She is currently working on her general education as a full-time student, going to school 12 hours a day on Mondays and Wednesdays and juggling two full-time jobs as well.

When Shehorn is finished with Bakersfield College, she plans on transferring to an art school in Los Angeles or New York. “I don’t know where yet, but I figure it’s either go big or go home,” she said.