Meet Isabelle Matthies

With the start of August comes a sharp increase in plaid skirts and khaki pants around the Harrison Center office spaces. School is back in session, and as happens every year, some students have migrated over to the Harrison Center for their internships. In the coming weeks, we’ll be introducing you to these interns, and getting to know their story and specific roles in their internship.

This week we'll highlight Isabelle Matthies, a senior at Herron High School and the writer of this blog post.

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Isabelle has attended Herron High School for all four years and is currently enrolled in AP Studio 2D Art. She has been passionate about creating art for as long as she can remember, and has attended First Friday since middle school. During her internship, Isabelle will regularly write for the Harrison Center's blog, as well as develop a First Friday event presenting stories based around HCA artworks. Isabelle believes in the power of art to transform consciousness and develop cultural awareness, and hopes that her internship will allow her to gain experience working in an arts organization and in using art to foster community engagement. Living in the Butler Tarkington neighborhood, situated near to Maple Crossing, she is excited to see firsthand how the Harrison Center is able to engage with this area.

Her interest in interning at the Harrison Center for the Arts is largely due to the organization's transparency and social conscious. In this way, it is pioneering the intersection between art and society, which is what Isabelle hopes to explore further by majoring in Art History and Political Science in college.

In her free time, Isabelle enjoys making art, describing the artistic process as, "being able to think of an idea in my head and then watch it brought into reality." Her mediums of choice are ink, charcoal, Copic markers, mixed media, acrylic paint—basically anything but pastels. Her favorite artists are Andy Warhol and Gerhard Richter, and some of her favorite musicians are twenty one pilots, Alt-j, and Sigur Ros.

Bonus Question: Which is the best TV show: The Office, Parks and Recreation, or 30 Rock?

"Parks and Rec, for sure. How can you not love a hilarious show about the gridlock of politics and the importance of breakfast food?"