Anna Howell: Finding Beauty in Motion Through Scientific Curiosity

The Bachelor of Arts (BA) Senior Studio is offered each year to Stamps BA students in their final year of study. In the class, students and instructors combine individual studio work with a collaborative project: the production of a fully self-directed show from start to finish, emphasizing the skills and practices associated with producing professional exhibitions. This year, students under the direction of Professor Nick Tobier and GSI Michaela Nichelle also invested time in getting to know one another, conducting a series of peer-to-peer interviews to learn more about the process, inspirations, and practice of their classmates. Over the next few months, we’re reprinting some of these interviews, which were combined into a collection featuring studio portraits by Urvi Joshi (BA ​’25) and a cover by Riley Huhta (BA ​’26).

Anna Howell

Interviewed by Greta Leishear

Leishear: So first I wanted to ask, what was the story behind your betta fish — how, why, what, how?

Howell: It’s funny because I was in class and remember, it was like literally our first meeting. And Nick Tobier said, ​“What do you like?” And I said, ​“well, I like this and this, I like this too,” but I was interested in observing fish. But I realized how hard it would be to find a fish. And I said, ​“Oh, I know I don’t have a fish to look at. And it’s hard just to spark one up, you know?” And he said, ​“Well, go buy one.” And I was like, ​“What?” And then I thought about it, and then I was thinking if it should be alive or dead. Because movement would be a big part of my project. So I called my mom, and she said, ​“Yeah go buy one from the store,” and encouraged me to do it. So I went to the pet store literally the second week of school, and I saw this one fish that was swimming all calmly, and Maxwell was born. And I guess it was just something I’d never thought of to do myself before, even though I totally should have. Yeah, so that’s how it all came to be. And I guess I just do love fish. It’s weird. This is my third consecutive year doing an art project about fish. So, yeah.

Did you grow up on the water or around aquatics or fish? Do you think maybe fish bring nostalgia?

Yeah, I grew up… we lived on the water, so we were always around boats and stuff. And I would spend a lot of weekends at different creeks and I’d go swimming. My brother and I, and my dad, would swim a lot or fish, and we’d always catch and return because my brother was a vegetarian for 10 years. So I definitely feel a sense of nostalgia from the sea: I love the bay. I love the water, and it’s always been central in my family. It sounds kind of nerdy to be like, ​“fish are cool,” but I just think that they’re really fascinating on so many levels and in the way they work. And they’re so integrated in their environment in the ways that they have lived for millennia, and it’s just so free to think that people like us could exist in the same sort of things… it’s so different. And like the physiology of it.

Cool. Okay, I like that! As for you as an artist how would you describe yourself or your art? As a person or as an artist.

I think as a person, I’m not very creative, and not in a negative way. It’s not that I think I’m bad at anything necessarily, but I can be very tough on myself. And I know what I want to do. And it’s quite narrow, but I can be very driven, and I think everybody’s trying to see their weaknesses in that sense. So I think because I’m so driven, I also can fall into being uninterested in exploring different mediums and things like that. Which I think is something I’m trying to work on — like with this project, I stepped out of my box. But yeah, quite frankly, I think if I couldn’t do like medical scientific illustration, I wouldn’t be an artist. Maybe I would because I love art, but I don’t in some aspects. For medicine, I love all the things that make it up, but medicine is just me, which is why I like to combine them. I get more joy in the abilities of medicine, combining them, rather than having them separate.

Okay, yeah. I definitely feel similarly. What do you think about medicine, motivation wise? Are you interested in helping people, or the structure that the scientific world has? Or possibly familial? [Ana had mentioned her father is a doctor and brother is in med school]

I think I like knowing how things happen. I like how my dad used to wake up every morning and tell us to make the world a little bit of a better place — you know, just one little thing could create change. I think I like knowing how things work. And I think it’s just fascinating how we’re all dependent on this precarious balance… same with our environment, I’m intrigued in how we interact with our environment in specific ways. And one little alteration of that, and people will die: all these different things happen, but we are not seeing it. I think there’s so much we don’t know, too, and I like learning about it. I don’t want to do things that are messy and things like that because I don’t like being a part of it. I like learning about it, hearing about it. I don’t want to work as a PA has to, which is why I like bringing my artistic side to my work, because it’s a way for me to still learn and explore medicine, like biology, without having to actually be a part of it.

Definitely I agree in that aspect, and I think also, it’s intriguing how where part of a system that has so many complexities.

And I think I’ve always been a visual learner. I think that if I like what I’m looking at design-wise, it could have the most beneficial effect on my learning — so not a doctor, but being a researcher… by putting into a visual narrative form these complex sort of procedures or happenings to create that better understanding for not just me, but others.

Yes, I love that and definitely feel like I’m also a visual learner. It’s something I feel — the systems in our bodies are so precise, not just in our bodies but the overall structure of our ecosystems.

I don’t know. I just find that really interesting, and it’s crazy because the amount of change one little thing can cause, disrupt, is unmeasurable.

What about, in terms of your future? Where do you see yourself? Is there a specific location and is medical illustration the end goal? What do you think? Do you have anything specific that you’re really shooting to accomplish?

I don’t have a precise plan that I’m really interested in, but I want to do Medical illustrations. Specifically, I think that storytelling is so cool. But, besides that as a specialty, I think I would continue to go through and have experience with it. Literally, physically, I’d love to still be on the east coast as well, I don’t want to be that far away from the water and family. I feel like Maryland has everything. I also ride horses, so it has that sort of ambiance. But yeah, I think right now I’m just focusing on graduating here, getting into school, and graduate preparation. And then I think finding a job that interests me in the field of medical illustration is what I want. Because there are also cool things, like veterinary illustrations, and so many different avenues for scientific portrayal. I don’t even want to limit myself, but I’m not sure exactly what I want to do if I get into this field. I want to take it all in at first.

Definitely, I agree. It’s smart not to put all your eggs in one basket. I feel like my path is similar to yours. Technique-wise, do you have like a golden technique that you always reference in your work? Like, for me, I remember my first year. One of my professors told me like this quote about always making your lights lighter and your shadows darker.

I don’t have a specific technique because I often use different materials: like, for watercolor, I start with the background or shadows and build. But for me, I think I always like to make it before I make it good. Put it down on paper or create a draft before executing it.

Okay, gotcha. Do you think a lot of your subject matter prior or do you begin with research for research based projects? So like, do you think you, mostly educate yourself or, gather information or your ​“take” from outside research?

I think that this depends for sure on my project. I took the Stamps Illustration course this past year, fish projects — it was on the effects of Lake Michigan’s species. And for that one, I definitely went in on research through breaking it down into three stages in variety of fish, histories of the fish, how they affect the communities, how they’re being affected, how they tie to each other, and then I come upon the stance I want to take or the educational points I want to push. I found myself in the subject matter and focusing on repetition, so when I’m ready to create it big I knew [Maxwell] enough that I could illustrate him by understanding his movements and behavior. Which comes in either research or repetition while I observe.

Those are great answers. Do you think your fish has a personality, or if you were to envision him as a human what do you see?

I think he does have his own personality. I think everything has a personality. Like, I think even cars have a personality. But, for Maxwell, I think, partly the reason I know how Maxwell is is because he gives off kind of this highbrow, kind of fancy, like…

Posh?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Posh. And then whenever I feed him, he always looks directly at me and first tries to swim toward me. And that man [Maxwell] is very forward, and he knows what he wants. It is sometimes a little stupid joke because he doesn’t know what he is, or how to really swim.

What do you think you want the audience to take away, or see, doing these projects?

I want them to speak to Max or see him in a different light. The main object of this but fish in a broader context, animals that we don’t necessarily think they’re as beautiful as how elegant… everybody has something to give and not a gift… something that’s unique and beautiful about them even if you don’t think of it necessarily. I want people to see that kind of beauty that I see in fish. I think seeing fish outside their environment is interesting because you never really think of fish unless they’re like this or outside of water. Like, aside from other aquatic animals, fish are one species that are so integrated into their environment. Because I don’t think we really think of air as an environment, if we just think of nothing because we see it. So I wanted people to look at fish outside of the situations you’re used to looking at them in. Examining and really understanding that they’re beautiful. But yeah, I feel like since they’re in the water, there’s kind of a separation.

Yeah. Yeah. I notice that in some of your drawings, it didn’t look like Maxwell was underwater. Was this a part of what you’re talking about?

Yeah, I wanted it to show Maxwell moving, and I think like most animals, fish don’t sit still. So it’s hard to get a good look, or to get to know something thats in constant motion… So it’s sort of that like bottom-down, almost specimen-like, but not, you know.

Yeah.

But yeah, taking them out of that environment so all you have to look at is the details that make up like the different wildlife, like fish and animals, was the part I was most interested in expressing.

Path Forward, the 2025 Stamps BA Senior Studio Exhibition, was on view at Stamps Gallery from December 3 – 13, 2025. The exhibition worked to weave meditations on nature, the inner and outer workings of our human bodies from the functional to the phenomenal, the paces of daily lives whether reading or rushing, in friendship or in family and exploring memories of real and imagined pasts as they intersect with the here and now. Featuring work in experimental video, fashion, painting, illustration and sculpture, Path Forward postulates stepping stones for near and possible futures.