Insights
Katie on Chloe: Tortoise Takeover Edition
Tell us a bit about yourself
My name is Katie Gurren, and I have spent the most of my life in Jersey. I had always struggled with reading and writing as a child, so art became my escape. When I was in school, I would often take my sketchbook out into the playground, and the smaller kids would come over and watch me draw things for them. Every day after school, I would draw for hours.
Where do you draw your inspiration from as an artist?
Drawing was the first thing I did to get people's attention, and for a long time it was the only thing I thought I was good at. I went to college to study art and design. At college, art was really focused on meanings and symbolism; I was often told that art was not supposed to be pretty, and I did not agree. I wanted to express this when I designed the tortoise. I wanted to demonstrate that art does not always have to be meaningful, it could just be pretty; I saw a tortoise with a shell that reminded me of stained glass so I painted it as I saw.
What does conservation mean (and Durrell’s tortoise takeover) mean to you?
My family and I have been Durrell members for as long as I can remember. Over the years, we have adopted a few pets as well. I will forget the time I got to hold a snake they "Chocolate" at a local conservation kids group when I was very little. Tortoises (obviously), snakes, meerkats, and flamingos are among my favourite animals.
Give us a little background on Chloe (the tortoise). What inspired her look, and do you have any other thoughts?
I previously had two tortoises, Chloe and Isabella, but sadly Chloe passed away when she was very young, so my design is dedicated to her.
My vision for Chloe was to make a simple but beautiful design that you would see when looking at a stained glass window. I looked at many references of stained glass art and took inspiration for the colours, some adjacent sections are mostly shades of the same colour and others are wildly different and I think this makes the design look far more interesting. It took around 30+ hours to complete the design and a bit longer, to rectify some mistakes as the varnish caused me some issues along the way, but I love how the design turned out and am grateful to have worked on this project.
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