the artist I want to be
Here is my draft for my SOP. I currently don't have any professional experience, so I contacted my admissions advisor provided by SCAD and she told me to write about who I am as an artist and who I hope to be. My statement may seem a little off topic, but I felt it was impossible to properly describe the artist I want to be without describing the events that transpired below. Any and all feedback is appreciated!
I don't remember when I started drawing nor when I decided to be an artist; rather, it always seemed the inevitable. My artistic ability was a cornerstone of my personal identity growing up, and one I took pride in. I took practically every art course my high school offered, which admittedly wasn't much, and spent time in other classes sketching in the back of my notebooks. Going to college as a Fine Art major was the natural conclusion for me, and I enrolled in the BFA program at Slippery Rock University. There I found reasonable success, and I was able to explore a myriad of disciplines and mediums including ceramics, metalsmithing, and printmaking. My junior year, I took a semester abroad at the Vysoka Skola Vytvarnych Umeni in Bratislava where my anatomical and observational skills improved by leaps and bounds. And although I don't remember when I started drawing, I do remember when I stopped.
Shortly after my return from Slovakia, I quit drawing completely. Rather, I felt physically unable to draw. At the risk of being accused of melodrama, I'd say it was the darkest period of my life; I had just 18 credits left in my BFA and zero motivation or inspiration. I also stopped getting out of bed most days, instead languishing in my small apartment, crying and trying to distract myself from all the things that needed to be done. I have lived through several bouts of chronic depression, so I knew the signs: the lethargy, the numbness, and the desire for everything to just stop. What was new was the inability to create, and what had previously been my lodestar in troubled times quickly left me adrift when faced with its disappearance. I took a medical leave from college after a brief stint in the psychiatric ward for suicidal ideation and spent the next two years doing anything but art.
Instead, I went back to therapy, got on medication, and started working in an autistic support classroom, where I provided instruction and care for students who were either partially or entirely non-verbal, and paid off my student debt. I began to fear that I'd lost the ability to draw completely, since every time I tried, it just seemed wrong. In truth, it felt like losing a limb. Despite this, I tried to convince myself that I was happy; the work I did was exhausting but also fulfilling, and I explored the possibility of going back to school for art therapy. I pushed any dissonance to the back of my mind and consoled myself that while I'd likely never produce personal work again, I could help provide an outlet for those unable to communicate in other ways. I would have followed through with this plan, if not for my older brother's suicide on March 14th, 2018.
It blindsided my entire family; my older brother was a bodybuilder, and the thought of him intentionally harming himself in any way was incomprehensible. He was the type of person that filled a room; his physical presence aside, his personality and wit demanded attention as well. As a fledging artist, one of the first lessons I can remember learning is how to use negative space to better define the object one is depicting. The concept of absence and distance, both real and perceived, is one that deeply fascinated me as an adolescent and has since become the preoccupation of much of my work. However, it wouldn't be for many years that I would find out that, unlike English, Japanese has a word for this concept: ma. In the words of prominent postwar British graphic designer, Alan Fletcher, " Space is substance. Cézanne painted and modeled space. Giacometti sculpted by 'taking the fat off space'... Isaac Stern described music as 'that little bit between each note- the silences which give the form'... The Japanese have a word (ma) for this interval, which gives shape to the whole. In the West we have neither word nor term. A serious omission." My brother's death showed me that there is another side to ma, and his absence in my life is one I feel very keenly, every single day. It showed me how inconsequential my fears were, and gave me the courage to resume my dream.
In the year that passed, I returned to Slippery Rock and completed my degree on December 14th, 2018, and won Best in Show at our annual Student Juried Exhibition. As I look back on those two years, I can't find myself regretting them; they weren't wasted time as I previously thought, they were time filled with ma. And I am a stronger, more confident artist for them. Now, I am sure of what I want with my life, and that is to help tell stories for those like my brother and me, those who feel as though there is no other recourse than to end their lives, and for those they leave behind. I want to tell stories that are human and raw and hard to digest, and are all the more important to face for that exact reason. I feel that SCAD is the place that can help me tell those stories. I am applying to SCAD because I want to be part of a culture that promotes creativity and honest expression, and among those who genuinely want their peers to succeed. If there is anything that I have learned, it is that we must lift each other up and that is what I feel SCAD represents.
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