Isa Martinez-Moore, a 17-year-old student at Ashland High School, has an exceptional passion for art. Aside from making art for pure enjoyment, Martinez-Moore often brings her art into Rogue News publications, where her natural talent and remarkable art pieces are an incredible asset to the Rogue News classroom. Both in school and outside class, art is for Martinez-Moore as air is for most other people.

“I would say it’s probably my biggest interest and hobby,” she said, when asked about her art career. Traditional pen and ink drawing is her favorite medium, and she also enjoys semi-realism. Combining a realistic method with a cartoon style, Martinez-Moore uses her art to “push the boundaries of what is real.”

It seems that Martinez-Moore’s fervency for art runs in the family. Her papa is also an artist, and lives in San Francisco as a sommelier. To add a splash of color to her otherwise routine Covid summer, Martinez-Moore took a trip down to the Bay Area to visit her dad.

There amidst the honking cars and salty, sea-sprayed air, Martinez-Moore enjoyed a welcomed vacation away from home. Despite the global pandemic, she was still able to appreciate the pleasures of bustling city life. Martinez-Moore revealed that closed-off streets allowed restaurants more room for serving customers outside as well as saying, “The thing that I thought was really cool was in parks with big fields, they had spray painted circles six feet apart for people to sit inside.”

Aside from giving sound advice on wine, Martinez-Moore’s father was a traditional artist and photographer in the height of his ardor for art. Her papa has been a major influence in her life as an artist. Although he has since then lost his interest and confidence in his art, this creates his drive to push Martinez-Moore to be the best artist she can possibly be and continue her own art career, which she has been perusing from the very beginning. Rare is it that one finds a lifelong passion at such a young age, however Martinez-Moore is an exception, clearly proven as she said, “The age that everyone was starting to write with a pencil, I was drawing.”