Cynthia Garcia McBride was born in July 1959, at the Naval Hospital in San Diego, California. She is of Spanish American descent. Her father was in the United States Navy and was her influence for joining the military at the age of 17. She spent the next 27 years in the United States Marine Corps and retired in 2009. She has lived in Iwakuni, Japan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, and now resides in Elizabeth, Colorado. After retiring from the Marine Corps, she enrolled in college in Aurora, Colorado in 2010. She transferred to Metropolitan State University, Denver, Colorado in 2013, where she studied painting towards her Bachelor of Fine Arts.
She always had an interest in all forms of art but it was Renaissance art that first piqued her interest in painting and moved her to begin her formal studies towards a degree. Since that time, Cynthia’s interest has evolved into exploration of the cause and effect of a military career on a veteran’s mental condition.
Cynthia’s work has been exhibited at the ARTCORP Gallery in Pueblo, CO, Su Teatro Performing and Cultural Arts Center in Denver, CO, the Veteran of Foreign Wars Post 1 in Denver, CO and the Center for Visual Arts BFA Thesis Exhibition also in Denver. It was during her thesis show that she was interviewed about her paintings series “Cloud Consciousness” by the Metropolitan State University’s The Metropolitan newspaper.
Cynthia continues to explore the military’s impact on the human mental condition through her art.
My Artwork for Sale
Camouflage
When I came up with the concept of “camouflage” it was not a new idea, however, my intent was to be camouflage outdoors and used the local terrain to disguise myself in nature. I feel that I this worked very well. After viewing myself in these photos, I had a hard time locating myself. In the future, I would try to “camouflage” myself utilizing a different method, which is to be determined.
Can context ?
Can contexts of art be interpreted differently then the artist originally envisioned and does this pose a problem for the artist?
When the artist is creating art, does he need to keep in mind what form of context he or she will be using?
(Action)
I performed this exercise on the lower floor beside the stair case. It was uncomfortable for me to do what I consider to be childish. I twirled and twirled going one direction first and then stopped to get my balance and the twirled in the other direction. Nicole video taped me performing and we laughed about what I was doing. I believe that
Alyssa was watching too. I’m not sure that performing in public will be a good idea for me but I will give it every effort for the sake of ART. I would provide the video, but it is in a MP4 format.
Project # 4: Self critque
I really liked working with GIF file doing an animation. I would add more movement to the spider crawling down the stairs and crawling down the wall. I also feel that the word FEAR needs to me more visible by changing the color and giving it more of a glow surrounding the word. I would love to create more animations in the future. This was fun! Thank you baby girl!
Project #4: Idea
I finally came to the conclusion for my project. The word that I pulled out of the bag was “Fear”. I used my own fear to create my idea, SPIDERS! It one takes one to create fear for me to create this emotion. I will attempt to create an animation of large spider crawling toward my house and it gets in, perching itself on my head, yuck! I hope with this animation will get my “Fear” across.
When creating motion and time in art work, where is the best placement for this or is up to the artist to find the best placement?
Is it possible to create too much motion/time and time in videos, sculptures, photographs, etc.?
Farm equipment
I completed my series of the seven photos using the farm equipment that was strategically place around property where I live. I like how my series turned out even before I started to manipulate them to give them a difference appearance. I think the most difficult part for me was having to come up with an idea that would work for me and it is when I stumbled upon the different types of farm equipment that I started to take off with my idea. I was hoping to give the equipment a softer look by using the smug tool and take away some of the hardness of the rusted steel. I ended up inverting all the photos, which gave them the appearance of a “mars” or red look that apparatuses, but also gave the equipment eerie look, but still identifiable.
Project 3: Redo
Well, my first original idea did not pan out for me, so, I embarked on a different original series of images that I feel worked out even better and that felt more natural for me then my initial one. There is some old farm equipment nearby, on farms where I live in the town of Elizabeth. The equipment is old, rusty hard pieces of steel that probably worked their engines off for their owner and then were left out in the open to wither away in the elements . My idea is to give these rusty pieces of steel a different appearance. Maybe an appearance of destruction or soften them so that the viewer will have a different perspective on this machinery.
Cynthia Garcia Mcbride 