My fascination with the idea of creating things first showed in a budding love for drawing a young age, which started to couple itself with short stories and comic strips throughout elementary school. I have lots of early childhood memories of making stop motion videos with my dad, animations in flipbooks or on my Nintendo DSi, or home movies with my siblings.
In middle school, I became familiar with graphic design through yearbook club and making posters for various events. I continued drawing too, delving deeper into character design, frequently excelling in art contests, and challenging myself with portraiture and anatomy. In the summer before high school, I started experimenting with film more seriously- including editing, writing for film, and storyboarding to layout my vision. It was also around this time I began doing work as a caricature artist at local fundraisers, which I continued throughout high school. That growing fascination with videography culminated in founding a film making club my freshman year, the same year I began taking pictures for the high school yearbook, and joined Stage Crew as an apprentice set painter. The latter would eventually lead to interests in acting- which I've done both on stage and on camera since- as well as taking up the job of Backstage Manager during musical productions. Just before COVID hit, I was taking Video Production and Digital Photography classes; once lockdown began, I finally made the leap into 2D digital art with ProCreate for iPad. In trying times, I also began writing poetry, and coming up with more complex stories for screenplays. Junior year I started studying Ceramics, and wrote and directed a short film in place of the annual Fall Play. That spring, I dedicated my time to art directing a custom theme for the yearbook as a Senior Editor, and beginning to curate my portfolio. My senior year I got back into drawing and more traditional arts as an Advanced Creative Arts student, alongside animation; I completed my first demo reel, filled sketchbook flip-through, and portfolio for my college application that winter. Looking to explore other creative outlets after finishing my first portfolio, I turned to playing the guitar, which I now found I was fairly capable of after dabbling on and off for about a year at that point, and taking my senior year guitar class very seriously. I snuck out of study halls to practice and write songs in empty rooms, and by the time I was putting together my Senior Year showcase for the visual arts, I was recording demos of original tunes in GarageBand. As a swan song to my high school art journey, I also painted my first mural with an artist friend of mine, which commemorated our graduating class. Now attending The University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, I've continued studying all of my interests and gained an interest in employment to help educate me on making a living doing all that I love to do. |