Long before I officially started my career, I dreamed of being an artist. I spent all of my free time drawing, painting, and sculpting in my bedroom. For years, I would buy a sixty-page blue Canson or a flimsy Stratmore every 4-6 weeks and fill it to the brim. I would draw my friends and characters from graphic novels I checked out from the library down the street. By the time I was in high school, I knew who I wanted to be.
I came into college with my major and minor already declared- a Studio Art BA and an English minor. In my second year, I was admitted into IU’s BFA Painting program. In that program, I was able to meet practicing artists who provided me with the skills and knowledge to begin my career. The people I met, professors and peers alike, changed my life in every sense of the phrase. They are the reason I’m able to live out the dreams I always had as a young creative.
Now, unmoored from institutions, I find myself taking the first big leaps into my professional practice. I’m unsure what may come next but I wake up every day with the same insatiable need to make that all great artists have.