ArtistsNetwork.com 51until days later, the emotion of what she’d created with his
encouragement hit her all at once on the way to the open-
ing. “The song ‘Sailing’ by Christopher Cross came on the
radio, and when I heard the lyric, ‘The canvas can do mira-
cles, just you wait and see, believe in me,’ I started bawling,”
she recalls. “I was overcome with so much emotion, think-
ing about the times I’d wanted to give up. I was starting to
believe again in this dream I had always had.”
MAKING LARGER STATEMENTS
That successful solo show inspired Robles to return to
a type of conceptual painting she’d once loved but hadn’t
done much of since her days as a student at the Laguna
College of Art and Design, in California. It was actually
her time spent in Europe, especially Spain, from 2005 to
2008, before attending Laguna, that had guided Robles
to experiment with allegory and
symbolism. “I used to take long walks
during which ideas just flooded in,
especially about the connection and
balance between nature and humans,
and the idea that our internal and
external worlds are intrinsically
connected—that the actions occur-
ring in one space have to do with the
goings-on in another,” Robles says.
“It’s all unfolding simultaneously. I had
ideas and questions about all of this,
and the paintings are me working out
these thoughts—not really to any con-
clusion, but perhaps through a stream
of consciousness, in paint.”STORYTELLING
TOOLS TO
REMEMBER
Theformalaspectsofpicture
making—theelementsand
principlesofdesign—are
storytellingtoolsatyour
disposal,accordingto
Robles.“Thecolorsyouuse,
forexample,canhelptotell
a story,”shesays.“Thewayyou
illuminatesomethingtohave
a highamountofcontrastcan
help.Eventhewayyouuse
spacecansupporta story.
Youcanusethesemeansto
createa hierarchy,pointingthe
eyewhereyouwantit togoso
thatit movesina certainway
thathelpsrevealthestory.”
If youhaveanideabutare
unsurewheretostartorwhere
it’sgoing,Roblessuggests
reviewingtheelements—color,
value,line,shape,space,form
andtexture—andprinciples—
contrast,balance,emphasis,
movement,pattern,rhythm,
varietyandunity.“Think,‘How
canI applythem,orsomeof
them,towhateverthisstoryis,’”
shesays.“That’sa goodwayto
figureit out.”