Cover Letter

My artist profile, titled “Ava Muntner: Born an Artist”, describes Ava Muntner’s

constant connection to art throughout her life. Everything, down to her vision, can be described

as having some kind of direct influence from art. Through this profile, I wanted to highlight and

prove Ava’s saying, “I was just born an artist.”

During Unit I, I didn’t miss any of the related assignments. For large and small group

discussions, I attempted to speak at least 3-4 times and tried to learn the names of everyone I was

involved with. I feel that I contributed a lot of insight into the different topics we discussed

together, and I attempted to lead discussions when in smaller groups. For most discussions, I

came prepared with notes and tried to play off other people’s ideas.

So far, I have found the focus of art in writing to be most useful in this class. Having a

discussion related to the STAMPS speaker series the following Monday motivates me to pay

more attention and write notes. In addition, I’ve learned a lot more about artists in general

through the different articles that were introduced to us. I felt some influence on my interview

questions and writing through Terry Gross’s work. What may have been least useful to me is

more specific to the Unit I assignment. I wish we had more time to interview our subject. For

both of the times I interviewed Ava, our conversation was cut short. This made me feel like I

could’ve gotten a more extensive interview or gone deeper into the artist’s mind but was cut

short by a time limit. However, this may just be a reflection of what interviewing would be like

in a professional setting.

Overall, I found this class to be very beneficial for my involvement in the art world. It

has helped me to become more interested in different artists and as a result, I’ve started to

become more interested in artist talks and interviews.

 Ava Muntner: Born an Arist

Taking a casual stroll with her twin sister, Lyla, Ava is noticeably distracted while her

sister points out a kite in the sky. Exactly what is she distracted by? The space, shapes, and

everything in between the trees and the sky.

Ava is a photographer who captures human interactions with her lenses. She previously

loved taking environmental pictures in her garden such as photos of beetles, flowers, and more.
Now, after traveling the world, she captures moments between people that she catches with her

curious eye.

Since she was little, Ava has always been surrounded by creative inspiration, whether it

be musical or artistic. Her father, David Muntner, not only owned guitars but also a camera that

he always brought on vacations. From the age of five, Ava was fiddling and fascinated with the

buttons of the camera, its lens, everything. She even found art in her glowfish’s bowl. “I loved

the light that I bought with it because I used to make my long exposure light photography works

with the fish tank light. I just thought about my fish and kind of what it does… ‘Sometimes I also

feel kind of constrained in a fish bowl and kind of confined… that idea of just, like, boredom.’”

This fishbowl was included as an artifact from Ava. It shows her pet glow fish, with a matching

neon scenery.

Picture of Ava’s fishbowl, Artifact

Even before becoming interested in photography, Ava loved to be involved in

performance arts, such as theater productions, and music. She took private singing lessons and
pursued it professionally, always working toward improving herself artistically one way or

another. No matter where she looks, Ava is able to find art and empathize with her surroundings.

Despite being twins, Ava describes her and Lyla as being “complete opposites”. But,

even if they are extremely different, they still each have matching butterfly necklaces, a symbol

of their family, to stay connected after separating from college. Butterflies, according to Ava,

represent many different things. Ava states the butterfly “represents the freedom to do anything

that you can, always possess strength, drive, courage, grace, very liberating”. She included this

necklace as one of her artifacts, not even taking it off her neck for the photo. Although this

butterfly necklace may be small, to Ava, it holds huge significance as a representation of her love

for her family.

Ava’s butterfly necklace, artifact

In many ways, Ava is supported by her loving family, so much so it embarrasses her. She

describes her parents as her “number-one fans”, storing all the artwork, good or bad, in their

basement. “They are my number one fans. My parents are my number one fans. They just love

anything and everything I produce and they want to keep all of it, actually.” Everywhere in her

parent’s home is plastered with Ava’s sculptures, photography, and even artwork that she wished

she had burned earlier.

 Being born in Long Island, New York, Ava was constantly surrounded by interesting

scenery and people just waiting to be captured by “her lenses”. As we sat on a bench looking

through her online portfolio for her activity, she noted one of the best places to find human

interaction in New York: Food trucks. Many photos from her contain photos of people buying

food and just that blink-and-you-miss-it interaction between the seller and customer.

https://www.avascaptures.com/urban

Other pieces of work Ava’s work also shows off this love for human interaction. During

our interview on Zoom, she tells me, “ [I'm] interested in how humans interact within their

environment and human behavior and how that’s captured through my lenses and then

transferred to my camera’s lens”. Ava describes herself as a very inquisitive person who loves

capturing tiny moments or people. For example, a girl gazing into a carnival stand may not be

much to the common eye, but through being curious about one’s surroundings you can capture

that second-long image, capture the moment, and make it beautiful through photography.
 The Muntner family loves to travel around the world. Ava has traveled to over seventeen

countries, photographing wherever and whenever she can. She notes her favorite spot to be

Portugal. “We just really love absorbing the different cultures and looking at all the different

artwork and the tourists and really getting a feel for what else the world has to offer.” In addition

to this, Ava included a photo of her plane ride to Portugal as one of her artifacts. It shows a calm

view of the blue sky with the sun starting to rise. This blue sky represents a calm before the

storm and holds anticipation as they depart for Portugal. Ava loves exploring the culture and

people in different countries around the world, absorbing the entire feel. Once again, looking

through her portfolio, this love can be seen in many of her different portraitures and photos of

people. When I asked which of her photos was her favorite, she pointed out to me her photo of a

single Portuguese man. This photo stands out from Ava’s other work as the subject is directly

acknowledging the camera, looking straight toward it. Although this is different from Ava’s

usual capture of the human spirit, she explains the difference from the other photos.
 This was taken during her time in Portugal, where she happened upon an old man with

his various art supplies and items spread across his lap. Ava just had to take a picture, however,

she didn’t speak Portuguese. Determined to get this man’s picture, Ava uses Google Translate to

communicate with him. Once he could figure out what this random American girl was trying to

do, he became very flattered and excited and especially tried not to smile, wanting to look cooler

for his photograph. This is the facial expression that was captured in the photograph.

Continuing the conversation from our activity, Ava emphasized her bias for taking

candid, uncalled-for photos and shots of people. In this way, Ava is better able to capture the

human spirit and interaction that she finds in the wild. When asking someone for a photo, they

tend to put up a front or facade, masking their true self. She states, “It’s best not to ask, and just

do.” However, at this moment, she believes that she very much captured the spirit of the artist

posing for her camera.

 Along with this, Ava experimented with double exposure and selective exposure to place

the subject back into his environment of Portugal. In a way, this photo was starkly different from

Ava’s usual work, but, she was happy to share it with me as one of her favorites.

Ava is known in her community for bringing it alive with art. She notes to me that her

school, Great Neck North High School located in Long Island, New York, wasn’t very well

known or involved in art. Through her photography and 3D work, she put herself out there as an

artist. This effort resulted in various articles being made about her by her local school press, the

Guide Post, regarding the Scholastic keys that she has won (Profile: A Photographic Perspective

of Ava Muntner – Guide Post). She could even be seen as a celebrity in her school, with the

many awards she won. She has won Gold Keys, Silver Keys, and honorable mentions in the

Scholastic Winner. Not only this, Ava Muntner was also part of Long Island’s Best, where her

work was displayed in the Heckschers Museum for a month. Through this, Ava states she was

able to connect with many more people her age. Ava Muntner has even done photography for

this school newspaper, always extending her love of art to her community.

When I asked how she finds subjects and compositions to photograph, Ava described the

type of vision she holds when it comes to photography. “I have my own composition grid in my

mind, like, a grid that has different meeting points, and I try to align that with my camera instead,

I want to capture what I see instead of what I’m seeing through the camera. My work revolves

around my own lenses, my own eyes instead of the camera.” She describes herself as quite

literally being able to see the lines in front of her, lining them up with her environment to find

the perfect composition. She emphasizes her desire to capture what she sees and what her lenses

see, trying to align her camera with her own eyes rather than being stuck in its screen display.
 It’s strange to think that along with her award-winning photography, Ava almost became

a professional tennis player. Tennis was one of Ava’s top contenders for her attention, as she was

winning various competitions and being recognized as just a freshman in her high school team.

After talking to her coach about the possibility of pursuing tennis more seriously, she realized a

stark difference in the way tennis fuels her compared to art. As she describes it, “I always knew

that art fueled me in such a different way, and just had more longevity.” She could always

imagine tennis being something she came back to, but art would ultimately win her interest.

Even though tennis will never be as important to her as art, she still included a photo of her

freshman year win as one of her artifacts of the past. It shows a clear action shot of Ava about to

swing for the ball, along with the final score marking her victory.

Ava’s freshman tournament, artifact

Ava, talented in sports and academics, was always connected to art. “I always just saw

the world…[in] a very artistic view. Like I’d be walking, and my sister’s like, “Oh my god, look

at that kite in the sky!”, and I’m like, looking at the negative and positive space of the tree

branches. I’m looking at the shapes and everything and she’s like “What are you seeing”? And

I’m just like, “I guess I’m just an artist”. And I was just born an artist”.

Reflection Part I
 Most revisions that I made to my work involved moving the order of my paragraphs to

make the overall flow of my artist profile better. Many of my ideas were fine in their own

sections, however, combined they were confusing the reader. Other smaller revisions included

going back to the recorded interview to get more quotes and finding more images of Ava’s work

to include in the article. I also went back to add a bit more information that directly addressed the

artifacts that Ava showed me. I felt the most important revision I made was the one regarding

paragraph flow. At many points in my draft, the topic would switch momentarily, and then in the

next paragraph or next few paragraphs return to the original topic to finish. For example, I

attempted to finish a paragraph regarding Ava’s favorite photograph with, “This is the facial

expression that was captured in the photograph.”. I then proceeded to a new topic, Ava’s

involvement in her community as an artist. Then, I switched back to talking about Ava’s bias for

taking candid photos, which is more related to her favorite photograph. In short, I needed to

desperately revise my paragraph order to make more sense, or else the reader would have to be

scrolling up and down my article to try and understand what was happening. I’m very satisfied

with the order I created for my final draft. For example, now, when I begin to discuss Ava’s love

for photographing human interaction, the paragraph is followed by a quote from Ava talking

about this love, rather than cutting to the Muntner family’s love for travel. In addition, the

section talking about Ava’s favorite photograph now flows as one piece, rather than scattered

weirdly throughout my draft. I want to achieve a progression of Ava’s constant interest in art

flowing throughout her life, and I feel that this final draft accomplishes that.

Reflection Part II
 My favorite assignment from this unit that I found most useful was actually the workshop

and feedback assignment. We gathered in groups of 3 (or four, due to my mistake in sharing the

document with the wrong person) and discussed the positives and negatives of everyone’s article,

sharing how we think they can be improved by following a critique guide. This may seem an

obvious choice to pick for an assignment that would help me the most, but I found it surprising

how much reading other people’s articles helped my own. Not only would it help me to strive to

copy their positives, such as Coby’s beautiful informal descriptions, but also help me to find my

own negatives/downfalls. I believe that this will help me to become more open to reading other

people’s work as a reference for my own. As an artist, I already do this for many of my artworks.

Finding references is a crucial part of the artistic process. This assignment helped me to realize

that this is also a crucial step in the writing process as well. I also, in general, found the critique

from my peers to be insightful and very useful. In fact, the revisions to my paragraph order were

suggested by someone in my small group. Overall, this unit has been helpful for me to realize

that I need to find more influences and references for not just my artwork, but for my writing as

well.