From the first moment I stepped into room D6, I knew that the next 4 years of my life would be those of an artist.

 

I came into San Lorenzo Valley high school as a scared 14 year old in the shadow of my sister's effervescent glow. I was lacking in any direction, aside from the weak inclination to blend in. I had always found myself to be a creative person, but years of judgment and bullying had caused me to bury this part of myself. I was a poorly erased chalkboard, muddled with the fragments of past insults.

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This was my reality until the day that I walked into art class for the first time, and found a piece of myself that had been missing. Words cannot properly dictate that moment: the shelves riddled with art supplies I had never seen, the walls stacked with lifelike portraiture of past students, the air full of new artists taking their seats for the first time. From that moment, I knew I was meant to be in that room with those people. 

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Although I had an immediate desire to create, applying practice to my passion was no easy feat. I did not have the technical or creative skills initially, so I worked and chiseled away at my skill, hoping to one day feel like a true artist. I practiced every medium, learned every skill, and studied every artist. Technically, I felt myself improving, and felt growing pride in my detailed self portraits. Still, it seemed that I was stifling my potential by keeping such an internalized narrative. 

 

This year, I finally decided to use my art to communicate a more current societal downfall: the ignorance of the wealthy. My display of a timeless figure hiding behind the window of a dystopian future is meant to comment on the lack of progression asked of the top 1%. This project has allowed me to create art with a greater purpose and truly define what my creativity means to me. As a whole, taking a step outside of myself with respect to art has allowed me a deeper understanding of what I want to do with my life. 

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In the end, I want to leave the world knowing my creativity made a difference. This intrinsic desire has led me to the path of biomedical engineering, where I hope to make progress in prosthetic limb and artificial organ research . Because of the creative agency I have developed through art in high school, I feel prepared to enter the next chapter with confidence.

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