Meet Ayana Norwood, July’s featured artist
As part of our ongoing 40th anniversary celebrations, we are featuring a different CE artist and logo every month of 2023! Read more about our 40th anniversary and our featured artists ▸
Ayana Norwood smiles at the Creativity Explored studio
At the studio on a summer afternoon, Ayana Norwood is engrossed in her work: she meticulously draws a pink Victorian on Procreate on her iPad, her fingers (adorned with lavender nails she painted herself) deftly zooming in and out of the canvas to add details.
Young, hip, and always fashionable, Ayana is one of Creativity Explored’s newer artists — but despite her short tenure at the studio, she is a quickly rising artist with great potential. Her raw talent is obvious: with precocious dexterity, she creates complex drawings of versatile subject matter with ease, from wild animals to buildings to a self-portrait of her on a motorcycle.
Ayana is a focused and dedicated artist: she starts drawing the moment she shows up at the studio, and rarely puts down her tools except to eat. When starting a new piece, she readily embraces source material for inspiration, and is also able to skillfully translate scenes and figures from imagination.
“She works nonstop – she’s super dedicated to her work. She’s very precise, to the point that she will touch up her pieces pixel by pixel.”
At Creativity Explored, Ayana splits her time evenly between digital illustration and drawing and painting on paper. She mostly enjoys working alone, but likes being surrounded by other friends and artists in the studio. You often can’t tell behind her mask, but Ayana is always smiling, with a playful sense of humor: when someone comes up to see her work over her shoulder, she’ll make a quick change, followed by a “just kidding!” and a smile to herself.
Formerly going by the name “Wirsha,” Ayana often experiments with ways of representing her unique identity. Her kind, polite, and sometimes shy nature belies her inner sense of style: Ayana often adorns herself with funky jewelry (like her Black Lives Matter earrings), makeup, and creative hairstyles. As an artist and peer, Ayana is independent and self-assured beyond her years.
Staff members note that Ayana is particularly skilled at setting boundaries, and she is certainly an artist that knows what she likes: she’s partial to an iced coffee with cream and brown sugar, as well as tattoos, butterflies, birds, and the color pink. Ayana likes to play and dance, especially to the Kim Carnes songs “Bette Davis Eyes” and “Crazy in the Night (Barking at Airplanes).” In her free time, she enjoys the roller coasters at Great America, swimming, and watching Despicable Me and the TV show Californication.
