Spencer Buchi

In 2019, I was searching for my higher power and I experienced a deep shift inside of me that helped me to recognize that Jesus is God. I came to believe that Jesus is alive and I encountered that living personality and it has changed the course of my life. Around this same time I experienced a shift in my perception of myself and I took a long look in the mirror - seeing the fool I am. My encounter with Jesus was like meeting someone steady, calm, and his love and transformative presence swept through my heart, my mind, my foolishness like a fire burning through an old house. I had been bringing my gift to the table without submitting it to God. With Jesus I can now begin to imagine the true potential that my life and gifts can have—to be of service in the lives of others. 

     I am interested in using surrealist techniques to develop deep and personal expressions and embedding the meaning of those expressions into abstraction. I started by writing the phrase “self-care” with my non-dominant hand as a way to prime my mind into thinking about what self-care means. I then created an automatic drawing with my non-dominant hand, which I used as a reference point for a sketch. I have abstracted that sketch to use in both drawings.        The exploration of self-care has caused some introspection on what I consider self-care to mean for myself. I identify setting boundaries with others and having alone time to recharge as ways I can practice self-care. I have also recognized that reaching out and trying to connect with others is important in my self-care practice.       I used mark making that invokes feelings of calmness and quietness in my mind. The repetition of patterns feels like a meditative practice for m...

  I started attending Boise State University in January of 2020. On December 14, 2024, I plan on graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Drawing and Painting. I chose to do a series of still life photos that give a glimpse into my time as a student at BSU. I have included some of my art projects, some of the tools I have used in making art, a mask that I wore when COVID began, and other items that I have used. I wanted to capture the journey of being a psychology and art student and also graduating and looking beyond to what might be next.

Jesus Heals The Logos I was interested in using oil paints and graphite pencils on the same surface. In preparing the pieces, I chose to abstract old sketches and use those abstractions as the subject. I didn’t want a recognizable subject so as not to distract from the materials being used.  In making the pieces I became interested in highlighting how the oil paint is applied to the surface. I left brush marks and textured places of oil paint to let the viewer have a glimpse of what tools were being used.  The mark making with the graphite pencil is perfunctory and repetitive, whereas the mark making with the oil paint has more fluidity and rhythm. I hope the viewer can contemplate the various types of mark making with the materials and feel inspired to explore how the tools of an artist can be used.

Master The Tongue Truth is Freeing I began with the prompts “Master the Tongue” and “Truth is Freeing” and made a drawing based on each prompt that was inspired by an art therapeutic approach where the process of making the artwork matters more than the result. I was curious to know if the resulting artworks of being intuitive and spontaneous with an art therapeutic approach are worth spending time on and using as a reference in two more drawings where my mark making is much more intentional and time intensive. The intuitive approach and the intentional approach for each prompt placed side by side create a comparison of processes of the same idea and I hope the viewer can wonder about the value of spontaneous and intuitive artwork and decide if there is interest in taking it to a place of intentionally and thoughtfulness.  

When I was 13, I had an emotional and psychological stressor that led to almost 3 decades of behavioral problems, addiction, and mental illness. It triggered the genetic expression of first schizophrenia and then bipolar type 1 disorder with psychotic features.  I chose this subject because I think it was a pivotal point in my life story. I think that my worldview was dramatically shaped by this event and not in a good way. My reality was shattered, and I have spent decades trying to recover. It may seem trivial compared to what other people have experienced but for who I was and what I believed, it was mind shattering for me and altered my path and my personality permanently.  I chose not to do any preliminary sketches because I wanted the work to display my raw feelings about the event. I chose not to plan out my work because I wanted the work to show that I was working my way through how the event made me feel. I didn’t want the work to be a polished and “nice” looking piec...

My dad has been gardening since before I was born. His mom was a gardener and he learned some of what he knows from watching her. My dad grows a vegetable garden and plants a lot of flowers each year.  I wanted to explore what I have seen my dad doing with his hands. I have watched him as he digs in dirt, pulls weeds, and other tasks associated with gardening.  When I consider what I have seen my dad do with gardening and wonder if I have ever done similar things, I remember that I worked on a flower farm as a teenager. I did things like dig up weeds and transplant flowers.  To make a piece that displays something my dad does often and is something I have also experienced is like finding a connection to my dad. Finding a connection to my dad feels psychologically healthy to me and helps me feel like I am practicing art therapy with this piece. 


 Home means different things to different people. I aimed to incorporate what I learned about home, from asking my wife, my dad, and my brother in law’s wife what home means to them, in this painting. My wife told me about the ocean and growing up in California. My dad showed me pictures of his childhood home set amongst mountains with a cow in the yard. My brother in law’s wife talked about home taking place in her brain. I aimed to make space for ideas of home from others and translate their verbal statements into one visual representation. I applied the paint thickly and with little blending to emphasize an approach to painting reminiscent of an uninhibited child playing with crayons in their home, to bring the meaning of home into my application of the paint.

My wife and I have coffee almost every morning in the same room in our house. I almost always get out of bed before her so I brew the coffee and when she wakes up I bring her a cup. We talk, philosophize, plan, argue, and mostly just connect to each other. I wanted to convey the setting for a morning ritual of drinking coffee between two people. I wanted to have a feeling of intimacy and closeness and warmth and an invitation for the viewer to be one of those people and imagine a morning such as this one. I chose to use a ball of light instead of a structured light like a lamp because I wanted to indicate a glow of warmth or love taking place between the two. I wanted to indicate that drinking coffee together is more than just sipping on a beverage but it’s a chance to connect to your loved ones. I used coffee colors to take the painting to a place of abstraction from the actual scene. I made a diorama as a reference for the painting that I based on images of the room in my home where ...

Home House Dwelling Residence I started with 4 paintings that used surrealist techniques because I wanted to agitate and stir up my mind in relation to Home before coming to a more settled place later. I used the word home and three synonyms - house, dwelling, and residence as starting points for these 4 paintings. I used the surrealist technique of automatic drawing in relation to each word, meaning I wrote down the word and then did an automatic drawing under that word on the same piece of paper. I also used my non dominant hand for writing each word and each automatic drawing to further loosen my conscious control over my actions. Writing the word down is meant to serve as an act of suggestion. Imagine that you are cloud gazing with a friend and all you see are fluffy clouds. Your friend then says “Look, a dragon”, and then you can see a dragon in the clouds. The same effect happens with writing a word or phrase down first and then doing a non-dominant hand automatic drawing. I am s...

             When I was 11 years old, I wanted to be a cartoonist like Jim Davis, the creator of the Garfield comics, and I made up a cartoon character that I named Herby. I used the drawing I made when I was 11 years old as a reference for the character in my screen-printing project. I was inspired to create a cartoon-like serigraphy print reminiscent of a comic strip or the Sunday Comics. I used stencils for both layers because I could tell they would create the effect I was aiming for based on the sketches I had made. I used screen filler for the lettering and chose a phrase that I thought would be positive, lighthearted, and uplifting, which is the feeling I would get when reading the Sunday Comics or Garfield comic books. The lettering is hand drawn to emphasize the cartoon-like style I wanted. The layers of colors are misaligned in some prints more than others because when I have read the Sunday Comics, I have sometimes seen that the layers of in...

  Maternal Grandparents Papa and Nanny A carpenter and “Oh, sweetie will you pour me some coffee?” Sawdust  and  coffee grounds   Paternal Grandparents  An insurance salesman And an oil painter/gardener Paper Canvas, paint,  and a  leaf   Mother who loved to cook Father who spent 42 years at the Post Office and gardens like his mom Thyme  and  celery seeds Postage stamps  and the  leaf  from his mother   Me an artist Pencil shavings  and  paintbrush bristles   I printed the texture from sawdust and coffee grounds combined on the left to represent my maternal grandparents because they were unified in purpose and married for about 70 years. I printed texture from paper on the upper right to represent my paternal grandpa, and, separately, canvas, paint, and a leaf on the bottom right to represent my paternal grandma because they had divorced each other before I was even born so I wanted to present them as ...

  In  September of 1998, at age 18, I had an encounter with a spider on the outside of my basement window. I was drawn in to take a closer look at the spider by its movement and the pattern on its abdomen. I perceived what looked like a pattern in the shape of a human eye on its abdomen, and the spider’s legs repeatedly pointed to and touched the eye. I felt a profound sense of oneness and self-identification with this spider, and a few days after this experience I decided that I wanted my nickname to be Spider.  Much later I learned that identification with a spider was an expression of the shadow side of my psyche that stemmed from psychological trauma I experienced in my youth.  The straight lines of the web all converge under the eye on the spider in this piece to describe the sense of identity and awareness of self I felt while observing the spider. The abdomen and eye on the spider in the print are exaggerated because in my memory that is what stands out to me....

In December of 2005 I was diagnosed with Stage IV Follicular Lymphoma, which I have been in remission from since May of 2008. This piece represents my experience with the initial diagnosis and the ongoing bloodwork I expect to do annually for the rest of my life. I have represented the tumors with foam balls of three different sizes, of which there are 80 because P.E.T. scans revealed 80 tumors in me. The two smaller sizes are not accurate to the literal size of the tumors, most of the tumors were smaller, but the two largest foam balls are a literal representation of the size of the two largest tumors detected. I placed the 2 largest foam balls in the figure in the approximate location of where the liver and the heart would be because these were the locations of the two large tumors. I painted the foam balls dark blue to represent the thoughts of dying and death I consistently had for several months. I printed results of blood work I have gotten over the past decade on sheets of red, ...

I chose to use tools of an artist to explore the activities of artists. In using pencils and a sketchbook, I am transforming objects I frequently use into a new shape, a different function, and an observation of what being an artist means.  As the idea was taking shape I wrestled with feelings of tension because I was looking at placing the sketchbook within a wall of pencils and making it appear unobtainable, or beyond my reach. That message wasn't resonating with me, but it was an important step in reaching a design that I did connect with because as I was building the pencil structure, I continued sketching ways I could build a wall of pencils around the sketchbook. I settled on a sketch that is reminiscent of a castle because the message with that sketch changed the unobtainable into a place of high esteem or royalty, which felt more peaceful. This piece is stating an approach to drawing that places the activity in a realm of order, esteem, and in some ways sacredness because t...

I intended on talking about love for others, providing care for another, and nurturing growth in others, so I began with sketches that symbolized those ideas. The images I liked most showed flowers growing out of soil, through a human heart, and blooming after passing through the heart so, I abstracted my piece from these symbols. I realized while working through this project that my ideas were in line with the psychological concepts, that I have learned about in my psychology classes, of nature (genes) and nurture (environment and experiences). My intention was to show nature as represented by the base, and a positive or loving/nurturing environment as represented by the upper part of the sculpture. The green wires that run through the upper part that is an abstraction of a heart, represent the growth of a human that can be possible with a nurturing/loving environment. I chose the moss material for the base to represent the soil and a connection to nature. I placed the ends of the gre...

         I intended on representing mental health in my final project which I chose to personify as a wise person, or a wizard, walking a daily path. The path is a golden color because I wanted it to represent something valuable to walk on. I intentionally made a pattern in the path to have subtle crosses on it because I try to live as Christ would have me live. The background is representative of a daily cycle, which I wanted to bring up to indicate a circadian rhythm. I have bipolar disorder and part of having that illness is the inability to naturally regulate my emotions and my circadian rhythm. I have learned over the years to routinize my life to maintain a stable state of mental health. The tree in the background is a representation of my routine, or things that I routinely do. I drink coffee in the morning, and the wise person is reaching for that first. The next symbol represents prayer, it is a pair of hands in the prayer form because I pray and practi...

            My intention was to draw my kitchen using the idea of baked goods as the inspiration for the color. I intended to draw the countertops to look like pumpkin pies with a crust like bottom part that gets darker toward the top like a pie crust would when baked in an oven. The floor was inspired by cinnamon rolls, and I drew spiral shapes which are reminiscent of the shape of cinnamon rolls in place of wood grain. I used the idea of butter for the color of the back wall, and I added shapes that represent steam with the intention of having the wall look like it has wallpaper on it but also that the cinnamon rolls are steaming. The upper cupboards were based on the meringue that is on top of lemon meringue pie, so they are darker towards the top like I have seen on meringue. The fridge is based on a beverage that my grandmother used to give me and my siblings, which is a cranberry juice mixed with orange juice. I drew the stove while thinking of a berr...

I intended to portray an artist in my constructing bodies drawing. I included objects that represent what I do as an artist such as paintbrushes, a camera, a bag for carrying art supplies, an easel, an apron I use when I oil paint, and the self-portrait I drew for Art 212 this semester.  As I was gathering supplies, I saw a hat that I also decided to include because it reminded me of one that I have seen Vincent van Gogh portrayed as wearing in movies about him. I then decided to incorporate fake sunflowers into my drawing as well, again to go along with the idea of Vincent van Gogh because I have seen paintings of his that have sunflowers in them. I wanted to explore myself as an artist with Vincent van Gogh as the influence because I have read that he may have had bipolar disorder, which is an illness I have had for several years. He spent some time in psychiatric hospitals because of his mental health problems and I have too. He had a driving desire to paint and make art, and I ...