This application is due Friday, so please provide as much support as you can within this quick timeframe.
Thank you.
Prompt:
Write a 500 to 750 word statement that describes your artwork. Discuss how you came to focus on the body of work that you wish to pursue at the graduate level. Also discuss future directions or goals for your work, and finally describe how the SAIC program to which you are applying is suited to your professional goals.
Current SOP:
Don't Stereotype Me: Communicating the Designer and the Artist
Personal Statement, School of Art Institute of Chicago
According to David Carson, the father of grudge within the design community, "You cannot not communicate." I wholeheartedly agree. Furthermore, I support this belief with the notion that the most impactful forms of communication partners the message with the most influential medium. Building upon this concept, through the usage of traditional computer graphics partnered with the manipulation of other mediums, I strive to encourage dialogue about the effects of everyday actions and personal prejudices relative to reflections on and experiences in one's life.
During my upbringing in the low-income communities of relatively segregated St. Louis, Missouri, I have experienced prejudices related to my color, education (i.e. using correct English was negatively connoted as "talking white"), gender, body size, economic status (yes, even in a low income community), and so on. But, this motivated me. These judgments influenced my work during my undergraduate career in the initiatives I spearheaded (i.e. black culture day, vagina monologues and the development of the infrastructure of a nonprofit program promoting higher education within low-income communities like my own, just to name a few). They also influenced my research studies at the graduate level within the field of communications, such as language hegemony and global English, America's culture of fear in relation to African American men and gender stereotypes and body image in the mass media. And, although I created impact through these forms of communication, it is through the medium of art that I can expand my research, message development and influence, especially due to art's potential to surpass trends, cause widespread change and motivate a large variety of audience members.
In developing my artistic craft at the graduate level, my artwork will explore the parameters of prejudice through various mediums that will stimulate the human sensory system through interactions. This would further become highlighted through the interactions and partnership with interdisciplinary platforms and alternate design techniques. The historical and contemporary contexts of various cultures in an array of contexts will define my creative exploration at SAIC, an area of research I was unable to explore extensively within the artistic realm, during my undergraduate and graduate tenures.
During college, I lacked the resources and guidance to further my designs, question my concepts within different communication mechanisms, and debate ideas with likeminded artists. This was largely because I was pursing the advertising side of the creative practice of design and, like many minority designers, I lacked the encouragement and knowledge base from my family of pursing a non-commercial (or even in some cases, commercial) creative profession. I believe I need an additional year of artistic study within a professional fine arts institution to hone my technical skills so that my conceptual exploration can truly emerge stylistically. This is why I am striving to pursue a Visual Communication Design Post-Baccalaureate Certificate before I begin my MFA degree.
Additionally, I am a marketer - a graphic designer with the concepts of "branding" and "promotions" in my repertoire. Having worked within the marketing and public relations fields since 2006 in the capacities of business and art, I did not recognize until 2009 that my creative needs were unfulfilled. I believe that I can become more than a graphic designer without relinquishing my passion for commercial design. SAIC will give me independence and conceptually challenge me to hone, and potentially merge, my parallel interests of design and art.
A PMFA in Visual Communication Design will fully meet my needs because the field of graphic design by itself is too narrow in focus; it does not encompass my overall need and purpose for design. Alternately, visual communication design is the communication mechanism that drives my social statements on community issues, marketing strategies for struggling organizations, entrepreneurial aspirations within the artistic realm and, most importantly, expressions of who I am. Through the Visual Communication Design program at SAIC, I can nurture my multifaceted personalities of artist and designer. As an artist, through SAIC I can further my research of introspection and actualizations in relation to the effects of the vast array of stereotypes on individuals and entire communities. As a designer, through SAIC I can manipulate and experiment with design techniques and mediums that could be explored within my future branding and advertising efforts. Through both platforms, I will have the freedom to explore addition tangible materials of production while testing the impact of large-scale designs through installations and exhibition designs. Also, the ethnic diversity in Chicago as well as within the student body of SAIC and my graduate cohort will not only expand my personal knowledge of other cultures but nurture my research and design of introspective artwork that challenges the status quo of widely accepted prejudices.
I am a non-traditionalist who supports the notion, "You cannot not communicate." Through my pursuit of a PMFA from SAIC, I can ensure that my anticipated message is communicated through the most effective medium. During this process, I will emerge not only a designer and artist but also a debater, innovator and artistically-stimulated challenger.
I really like the thoughtful analysis in that second paragraph. Your use of the quote in the first paragraph is great, too. You really kept my attention.
I did not come to a sentence I did not like until I got here:
This was largely because I was pursing the advertising side of the creative practice of design and, like many minority designers, I lacked the encouragement and knowledge base from my family of pursing a non-commercial (or even in some cases, commercial) creative profession.---This sentence takes the reader in many different directions (i.e. advertising side, being a minority, lacking encouragement?) All that is quite confusing, and I think you already covered the minority theme enough...
But really, this whole essay is impressive in a way that inspired real respect... not just approval of a student, but real respect and interest.
To make the essay even better, deal with that quote a little more. You did not really address what it means and how it is relevant. It is impossible to not communicate, because here we are sharing an experience. So... how does that relate to your plan?
Through my pursuit of a PMFA from SAIC, I can ensure that my anticipated message is communicated through the most effective medium.------I think this sentence is a weak spot, too. It is good if you replace this sentence with one that uses the meaning of that quote.
