Jewel Tran is a first-year transfer undergraduate artist-in-residence majoring in Art Studio. They specialize in sculpture - working with ceramics, cardboard, found objects, woodworking, and metalworking - as well as photography, performance art, writing, drawing, and mixed media. They are deeply in love with music, especially 90s emo, indie, hardcore, and many other genres, and music strongly shapes how they think, view the world, and stay motivated to create. Outside of art-making, Jewel often takes walks through trees and wooded areas, collecting rocks and sticks and finding inspiration in the eerie beauty of twisted branches and towering trees. To them, everything can be art if you truly take the time to see it.
As an artist in residence, Jewel hopes to learn new skills through a community and shared working space that is entirely unfamiliar to them. They have long been fascinated by engineering and computer science and are excited to meet lab members and learn from their work, exploring whether materials, processes, or ideas from the lab can be transformed into something imaginative and creative.