Quest for Excellence - Arts Award
- How have the arts shaped your life so far, and how might you apply your passion for the arts to college and beyond?
Pen in hand, I sit poised over a blank sheet of paper, my imagination wheeling to life. Within a few minutes, the sounds of frustrated mumbling and rapid scratching across paper ensues. A girl with two bouncy black pigtails and a splash of freckles gradually emerges from the white. She grins at me mischievously and gives me a half-sketched thumbs-up. I smile back as I finish giving shading her skin and clothing and signing her name in the corner: Maddison. Next, I include some of her unique information: Age 14, black hair, violet eyes, and an energetic attitude.
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- How have the arts shaped your life so far, and how might you apply your passion for the arts to college and beyond?
I sit over a blank sheet of paper, my imagination wheeling. Within a few minutes, the sound of scratching across paper ensues. A girl with two black pigtails, and freckles gradually emerges from the white. She grins at me mischievously and gives me a half-sketched thumbs-up. I smile back as I finish, shading her skin and clothing and signing her name: Maddison. Next, I include some of her unique information: Age 14, black hair, violet eyes, energetic attitude.
Maddison is everywhere--in my sketchbooks. She takes on various forms: smudgy pencil, inky pen, wobbly neon highlighter. Her personality has never changed, and yet, mine has.
For as long as I've lived, I've always had a pen in (and all over) my hands. I can rarely recall a time where I did not have art supplies with me, whether it be crayons or Strathmore 300 Bristol paper. To me, the materials did not really matter, so long as it was possible to take Maddison with me. I drew Maddison after a long day of homeschooling; she was one of my only playtime companions. I doodled Maddison at the hospital where I waited hours for my mother to finish getting treatment for her kidneys. I sketched Maddison on the semi-trucks my father drove up and down the West Coast. Maddison was my best friend for years.
But Maddison never existed.
In truth, Maddison did not shape my life, so much as my artistic investment in her creation. Art was the catalyst by which I assuaged my loneliness and realized my potential. Like Maddison, art was and still is my lifetime companion. I hope to someday share my investment with others so that they can make friends with Maddison when they are really beginning a lifelong relationship with the arts.
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(35 w over the limit of 300, so I need help shortening it!)
I need feedback ASAP because the deadline is tomorrow evening (3/31) for Pacific time!
I shortened your essay as much as I could, without changing the meaning. I think you may have to rethink it a little, and condense your description of Maddison. You need to focus, on what you really have to convey, to make the point. I tried to eliminate unnecessary descriptive phrases, and adjectives. I added some commas, too!
Your basic writing and form is good, though. The story is interesting, and tells us how you came to be an artist, and how you hope to apply your passion for art to the future. I think it's admirable to want to share as you call it, you "investment".
You didn't really address the issue of college, and how you will apply your talent to that.
I think you're on the right track. Just pay more attention to answering the questions, and less to flourish details, about the art itself, for better balance.
Good luck!
ef_carol