Artist of the Month: Katie Musgrave

Lyndsay Miller, Staff Writer
October 24, 2017

Katie Musgrave has poured her heart and soul into creating impressive works of art. Katie started to nurture her love for art at St. Francis Xavier where she attended middle school. Even as a young student, she always had a burning desire to express her creativity but did not find her focus until halfway through her freshman year at WJ.

(Drew Musgrave)
Katie Musgrave is The Pioneer artist of the month. She has been passionate about the arts since she was young and hopes to share her talents with others well into the future.

Now a senior, Katie finds inspiration for her pieces in all kinds of places, such as music, vintage culture, and the popular band The 1975. She believes one of the most important things about her work is that every individual looking at it can gain something. She shared, “I try to connect to my viewers by creating art that speaks to this generation the most. I try to create things that speak to people our age in a special way.” Close friend and classmate Bryn Reimer expressed her view of Katie’s art: “I think it’s so modern, and it’s something I’d pay money for to put in my house.”

Oil painting and sketching are Katie’s preferred mediums of expression. Bryn believes Katie is strongest at “drawing, especially in one continuous line, like her picture last year featured in The Sketch.” Ms. Cheril Walker, the honors art teacher, said that Katie “is good at trying to incorporate mixed media into her work. She has a good sensibility of integrating things together.” Aidan Finelli, a fellow art student, described Katie’s art as having “an intriguingly melancholy nature, [which] expresses a story in each of her pieces.”

Katie hopes to advance her academic and art careers by attending the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Katie is interested in SCAD because “it has the best environment for my passion and offers the best opportunities for what I want to do with my life.” She plans to study interior design so she can design stores for major retail companies. Her goal is to become the head of design for a large company and to continue to pursue her love of drawing and painting in her free time.

Of this work, “Messages,” Katie said, “I wanted to create a vintage appeal, something you would see on a brick wall in New York City in the 1950’s.”

In addition to being a talented artist, Katie has maintained a 3.9 GPA throughout her years at Walsh Jesuit while taking many honors and AP courses. Outside the walls of WJ, Katie has also begun to volunteer her time at Maplewood Senior Living where she does art therapy with elderly patients with dementia. “I like being able to help others, and I want more people to experience how I feel when I create art.”