Today we’d like to introduce you to Ari Golden.
Hi Ari, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Well my discovery into art really started when I was younger, maybe around 8 or so. Art really drew me in as a way to be able to block out stressors from my home life . I grew up in a rather dangerous environment filled with things a kid shouldn’t have see or experience. For a long time art stayed as an almost witness to the things around me , I could run to it and create a whole new scene to live in . It wasn’t until I was 15 when I went to permanently live with my foster mom that began to see art as more of a permanent fixture in my life . I started off with anything I could get my hands on , printer paper in school, pens I found, and borrowed pencils. I would draw all day and deep into the evening, I would draw when I wasn’t really supposed to. I think that year my mom really saw something in me and decided the best thing was to put me in an art focused high school. I went to “Westinghouse arts academy charter school” in Wimerding PA for a few years and graduated from there with a focus in studio arts in particular 3D building and painting were the two things I was focused on at the time. When I graduated a lot of pressure was on me to go to college so I tried to look for something cheap and close and I landed on “Indiana University of Pennsylvania”. My mom was a bit iffy about me going to school for art but In the end I think she just wanted me to be happy and she knew that I didn’t want to do anything else. While college my main focus was to A. Just finish what I started and B. Find my niche. I wasn’t until my third year that I took “beginning woodworking” that I actually found my niche. Our first project was a table and I got really in my head and opted to make a full 40in coffee table, it wasn’t until I finished it that I decided that a absolutely hated it so I started drawing on it. After drawing on it I just thought to wood burn the whole thing . It took me a year to finish woodburning all sides of the table and in that time I decided to make home in the woodshop . I took advanced woodworking twice and made more tables, reliquarys, and wall decor. Pointalistic woodworking became my thing, in my final year I got to return to painting in a collaborative peice for a show with my professor B.A Harrington in Philadelphia’s “Art in Wood “museum called “Suite Americane” . Soon after that show i graduated but I didn’t leave the woodshop and I’ve been in Indy since then featuring my art in Fox Clark Gallery.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
No ,anything but a smooth road. Getting into college was very difficult even highschool. When I left my father it was really abrupt. When I to Philly to see my foster mom with just a luggage bag and a folder of my legal documents. We had to file for emergency custody but unfortunately it didn’t go through so I became a floater in the system for a while. So getting into highschool was very hard and getting into college was even harder , I had to send all my documents to FASFA proving my circumstances to even get the loans to come out in my name. College was difficult, I got placed on an academic probation my first year and it was incredibly hard to get out of that hole . I was struggling with my mental health at the time and was getting evaluated for Bipolar Disorder with constant med switched . The whole time was pretty rocky but I made it through anyway
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Currently I am a woodworker, I like to make tables , wood burn portraits, create wall art ,build reliquaries ,etc. I mostly known for my pointillism in pyrography. I’m also known for utilizing all sides of any piece of wood I’m given. All of my wooden pieces features pyrography on all sides along with poems that are also burned in. I’m most proud of the community that I was able to build within the studio. I wouldn’t have made it this far without any of my fellow wood workers.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Art, it’s always been there for me.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: Ari_finearts
