It Begins! - An Introduction Post

    Hello! My name is Rei Suzuki-Smith; I'm a born-and-raised Fairbanksian with an appreciation for all things creative, and this blog is intended to be a collection of my student work for the Spring 2025 Explorations in Art course at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. I've taken classes on and off at UAF for several years now, though by credit count, I'm a sophomore. I'm also a proud employee of the University. I've worked at the Nanook Technology Services (NTS) Service Desk for about a year and a half now-- if you've needed assistance changing your University password, reported a spam email, or reached out for any other computer help in that time, we've very possibly spoken! 

    I'm an artistic hobby-jumper, so I dabble in a number of mediums, but illustration has been my one constant since I was young. I draw digitally for the most part, focusing on character design and illustration in a cartoon style, but have been branching out in style and subject in recent years. My start in art was married to my dependence upon the Internet, and as a result, I didn't really venture into the local art community until my adulthood. Now, I'm happy to go out to First Friday galleries and markets! I'd like to try my hand as a vendor at one of them sometime, but work keeps me busy. My art collection is pretty sparse-- I lived in a shared space for a long time and only recently have been able to start personalizing my home-- but on principal, I buy any art that features river otters or my favorite characters. Relevantly, I first saw and purchased the above works by John Burgoyne as a set of USPS stamps!