Big ideas, tiny spaces : Ashley Holzwasser's visual journal

"I guess everything started with my mother who would draw little cartoons of the family. She always depicted herself as the cat, I was the mouse, and my sister a bumble bee. I always loved her drawings and how her choice of each animal perfectly captured our personalities. As soon as I could, I began creating cartoons of my own. These early comics mostly involve my sister being the terrible brat that she was. (Sorry Tori) I realize now that I continue to use drawing the way I did when I was child. I'm a terrible writer, I'm not a big talker, my music skills are mediocre at best and the only way I've ever been able to express myself has been through visual art.

Flash forward to about a year and a half ago - I found myself complacent, bored and barely creating anything at all. I woke up, went to work, came home, drank, went to bed and did it all over again the next day. Long story short, I couldn't take it anymore. I went through a difficult breakup, a summer of couch-surfing, started a new relationship that would painfully crash and burn, moved into my own place, and the only thing there for me through all of it was my sketchbook. Something inside me snapped that summer, and I haven't stopped drawing since.

My pictures are often silly, sometimes dark and painful, but the most important thing is that they remain simple. I love to simplify life's moments, often its absolute absurdity, and depict it in a way that anyone can relate to. My goal is always to use the fewest words and simplest lines in order to condense a big idea into a tiny space. I consider these drawings my visual journal, and if you ask my father he'll tell you that he knows how I'm doing based on my cartoons. I guess I should call more.

P.S. This makes me sound so serious.... "

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For more of Ashley's work, check out her awesome instagram