Ninth-grader Chelsea Craver began drawing when she was six. An extended hospital stay in 2017 gave rise to her filling dozens of sketchbooks, and she’s been drawing and painting ever since.
Although Chelsea’s work these days centers on graffiti-style art, her varied artistic expressions are reflected on a skateboard she painted for the recent Board Life Project fundraiser at 303Boards on South Broadway.
When asked what she likes to draw, she said, “Whatever I can come up with.” She has done profiles and full-figure people, and the tower at Lakeside Amusement Park, “but now I just do abstracts or Graffiti-like lettering you see on trains and buildings.”
“I think it’s cool that she notices that kind of thing,” said Chelsea’s mom Tiffany Craver. “A lot of people don’t notice those things. If we’re out and about, like when we drive up Santa Fe Drive, we’re looking at trains because she wants to see all the different graffiti artwork.”
“I’m taking a drawing class, and right now we’re doing still life,” Chelsea said. “Just drawing objects and stuff like that. I missed the deadline to bring in objects, so I went through my backpack and found some stuff there [for drawing models].”
Chelsea prefers to use Prismacolor watercolor pencils and brushes, but when starting sketches, she says, “I’m connected to a mechanical pencil. I have a bunch of (graphite) pencils that I don’t use.” Much of her pencil drawing is filled with closely-knit, intricate designs.
Other than art, Chelsea visits skate parks—but not with a skateboard, as one might think. Instead, she wears roller skates, like the ones used at Roller City or Skate City. “Chelsea’s a little more extreme,” her father Chris Craver said. “She’s not just a [roller skater] on flat ground; she can drop in on a really high wall at the skate park.”
Chelsea also finds inspiration from artists on Pinterest or TikTok. “I mostly just, like, find some stuff on, like, Pinterest, and I have a TikTok page,” she said, “and people request stuff they want me to write, so “Star Born” was a request.” One of her sketchbooks is filled with her “graffiti” work. Her graffiti artist persona signature is “Soda.”
She has tried some art apps, like Procreate for iPad, but she claims not to be very good at that yet. “I just like the paper instead, not staring at a screen all day.”
Chelsea’s artwork has sustained her since she was diagnosed with aplastic anemia in 2017. As her mother explained it, aplastic anemia is a condition in which the body fails to produce blood cells and has a deficiency of platelets. “I first realized something was weird when Chelsea was covered in bruises. I took her to Lakewood Kaiser at Belmar. They ran tests and did blood work. The doctor came back and she said, ‘you need to go to the hospital. Like today.’
“She went through treatment that didn’t work, and her condition turned into acute myeloid leukemia, cancer cells that build up in the bone marrow. In 2018, Chelsea had a bone marrow transplant,” and she was cancer-free for the next five years. “But in August of 2023, she relapsed, which is pretty rare to get five years post-transplant. She went through more treatment and had another transplant in November of 2023. She’s just a little over a year after her second bone marrow transplant.”
Chelsea’s father said it’s hard sometimes to talk about Chelsea’s condition, but you often find that when you do, you might pick up a piece of valuable information from others who have gone through similar circumstances.
With a lot of time on her hands, Chelsea’s art helped to sustain her during the many days, weeks, and months at Rocky Mountain Hospital for Children at Presbyterian St. Luke’s.
When asked how she is feeling now, Chelsea flashed her engaging smile and said she is feeling all right. And she looks like she is.
This writer had the privilege to look through some of the dozens of Chelsea’s sketchbooks. Her work is fun and pleasing to the senses.
Chelsea’s strength of character is a testament to her resilience, and that vibrance shines through her art—and her skating.
