When asked who would be best to speak to, he was chosen by her co-workers to represent her domain. Nestled in the Cesar Chavez Student Center lays Eileen Field’s domain, a sanctuary for artists and creative minds aptly named The Art Gallery which she works at.

She, like her peers, is an artist. For as long as she can remember, she has been like this, finding an instinctive passion for art and literature and dance.

“It has just always been a part of my life.” Fields said.

In fact, much of her life revolves around artistic expression. Fields pursued an art education at SFSU, has taught young people to be creative through dance, and has even displayed her art in galleries such as Pacifica’s Oceana Gallery.

She emphasized the importance of learning to think creatively, as art “teaches to think in a way that’s not limited, [that] there is no right or wrong and that can be really freeing.”

The artistic experience is a “very meditative one,” Field said, “it’s almost like problem solving, it’s a combination of cognitive thought process and an instinctive action.”

Being an artist means drawing from worldly influences and manipulating it with one’s interpretation. Field is currently painting a series, mixing landscape imagery with scar tissue, an allusion to a recent injury which left a scar along her body. She noted that she came out of the otherwise traumatic experience feeling stronger because of her artistic expression.

Her art has allowed her, like other artists, to express the nuances of “human experience,” such as difficulties, traumas, and emotions, in a way that other mediums  cannot. Ultimately, that is what drives her to pursue it.

With her work at the bastion that is The Art Gallery, she strives to continue bridging the divide between routine life and the catharsis of creativity.