Dennis A. Hall Memorial Scholarship for the Creative Arts

How Art Brought Me Back Until the middle of junior year, I was fully committed to becoming a professional track and field athlete. I ate, slept, and breathed the sport. I loved running more than anything, and I couldn’t imagine a future that didn’t revolve around it. I trained obsessively, pushing myself to the limit every day. But that mindset, along with a worn-out pair of shoes, ended my running career. During one meet, my bones finally gave in. It was a rare injury that hasn’t healed despite rest and physical therapy. I fell into a deep depression, watching from the sidelines as teammates and rivals passed me by. Without running, I felt like I’d lost the one thing that gave me purpose. A few months later, I picked up a pencil again. I’d always been naturally good at art and loved doing it, but growing up as a young boy, it felt like the world was trying to steer me away from it. Drawing wasn’t considered “cool” or “tough,” and I never had much self-esteem, so I leaned into athletics, the one thing people validated me for. But in the quiet after my injury, I returned to drawing. At first, everything looked rough and disjointed. Still, I made it a point to draw a little each day. Slowly, I improved. At some point, I realized I was falling in love with the process again, not just the final product. I challenged myself, drew things outside my comfort zone, and accepted the frustration that came with failure. I reminded myself that this was how growth worked. Oddly enough, it started to feel like training again, reps, discipline, progress. Drawing became my new track. And just like that, the depression started to lift. Art has helped me reconnect with myself. I now see beauty in everything: the way light hits a cracked sidewalk, the crooked shape of a tree on the side of the road, or even an old man pushing a shopping cart. When I draw from imagination, stories form in my mind without effort. The characters and places come alive on the page, and it feels like the story writes itself. What amazes me most is that every viewer will see something different in my drawings, there’s no single “right” interpretation, and that freedom is beautiful. Creating allows me to express emotions I can’t always put into words. It heals, inspires, and helps me explore both real and imagined worlds. Nature especially drives my imagination, how shadows fall through leaves, how animals move, how clouds shift shape. I use these moments as inspiration to make something new. Art saved me. It gave me a way to feel connected again, to my own mind, to the people around me, and to the world I once felt isolated from. I create because it reminds me I’m still growing. I hope to keep creating art that inspires others to see the world differently, more thoughtfully, more curiously, more kindly. Creativity, for me, is not just about expression. It’s about rediscovery. It brought me back to life.