When the pandemic cut her basketball season short in 2020, Beckley resident Adriana Law looked to her passion for art to stay uplifted.
“Once quarantine hit, that’s really all I had,” Law said. “Drawing and art was really the only way I knew how to relieve stress from not being able to play.”
Law was a star player for the Lady Flying Eagles basketball team during her time at Woodrow Wilson High School. Unfortunately, Law dislocated her shoulder the season following the pandemic, causing her to miss her junior year and the first four weeks of her senior year.
Despite her obstacles, Law finished her senior year strong and maintained her love for basketball since she was four years old.
“Really, my whole life revolves around basketball and drawing,” Law said.
Law majors in sports studies and athletic training at West Virginia State University. Although she dreams of working professionally in the WNBA, NBA or NFL as an athletic trainer, Law said she will still make time for her portrait work on the side.
“It’s a way to express myself,” Law said. “I like to listen to music and get in my own world while I work.”
Law said she is most inspired by her dad, who is an artist himself. She said she loves to admire his work and also get feedback from him on her own creations.
“To see the things he created when he was my age and the things he liked to draw is one of the reasons I kept drawing,” Law said. “Art became something that I really liked to do and that me and my dad could do together.”
Law typically completes drawings of athletes and entertainers and other important people in her personal life, such as her grandmother and late grandfather. Law said it feels good to finish up a new piece finally and that she enjoys looking back at her old work and comparing it to where she is now in regard to her skill level.
“Depending on how long it took, I tend to feel relieved,” Law said. “I’m also usually pretty proud to see the growth in my work. It’s a really encouraging feeling.”
