Lights, Camera, Coffee, Action. A lot of action. I had to stand on a stage before a billion piercing eyes and a million illuminating lights, balancing myself against the crowd’s expectations and my determination to remember my lines. After the first act, I fell into a messy art studio, adding the finishing touches to props before they are needed on stage. With thirty seconds to spare, I rushed back into place not as an actor, not as an artist, but as a dancer. In that brief hour of performing, I was not only a part of the play, but I was the problem-solver and lead director in ensuring the show’s masterful performance. This was one of the most profound moments of my life demonstrating my ability to adapt and act accordingly as a leader and an academic. It taught me, along with my other participation in clubs and community services, that leadership is a complex foundation built on two ideals; Creativity and Loyalty. These ideals support me through my personal and academic excellence in communication and responsibility. Creativity is the best term for a leader’s adaptive craft. When a stage prop broke right before a scene for a club performance, my value of creativity kicked in. Instead of falling behind, I saw it as an opportunity to improvise. I grabbed the sticky glue bottle, a cardboard box from the recycling bin, and a pair of scissors from the office supply box, finishing the window on the prop before running onto stage. Whether designing stage props, creating cultural posters, and preparing spooky makeup, I got to collaborate with an adaptive team who taught me just how my creativity impacts the team’s effort. I got to lead the presentation. Creativity builds the presentation of Leadership. That is why lead actors present themselves so fashionable and extravagant on stage, leading the eyes of an audience in a story. That is why cultural festivals build themselves on a foundation of color and pizzazz, to lead a society. Loyalty strengthens any links of society by illustrating the importance of community relations. My role as Snoopy in “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” put this value to the test. Moments before the curtain was set to rise, we discovered the acting crew's microphones were not working. Rather than wait for someone else to solve the problem, Charlie Brown and I saw the cast's shared anxiety as a sign that our loyalty was needed most. We ran to the tech crew for a possible solution to the problem, collaborating with them to make sure the show went on. Finding a solution in that moment was about honoring the hard work of every cast and crew member, and in doing so, we strengthened the trust that held the crew together. We found microphones that functioned just in time for the curtain to rise. From experiences such as these, I learned that loyalty to an organization affects the effectiveness and support of your role in leadership. Leadership is nothing without the heart, and loyalty builds that heart. To this day, I continue to use these pillars as an artist, an academic, and as a profound leader in my community. In my college preparation, my facing-painting events, my community projects with National Honor Society and National Art Honor Society, I will continue to uphold the ability to communicate, adapt, and respond to my people. I look forward to holding these leadership values into campus as I plan to major in Architectural pursuits, building foundations for more communities with a great team and strong academic foundation.

Taking a look through my eyes, wooden pillars are highways of infinite roads. Oceans are blankets over the cold tides of stingrays. there are many vivid, bold, and delightful colors. It's impossible not to be immersed into the depths of our world's colors, but it also comes to the fact that the world finds it impossible to not be immersed into our hearts. I am a strong example of this relationship, because my everyday environment is astonishing to me with its colors of luscious green palms, traditional blue beach, and mystical white fog. I moved to Bluffton, South Carolina when I am only 7 or 8 years-old, terrified to what life would be like without the snowy times and noisy enjoyments of Ohio. Then... I explored to Hilton Head beaches, caught a stingray along Pinckney Island, and boated with my family to Daufuskie Island. Catching the stingray as a kid was both horrifying.... and exhilarating. My heart pumped. The fishing pole almost took me down the depths of dolphin territory; it was awesome! I even got the chance to express my new home's natural beauty by painting not one, not two, but three murals for my community. They sit in my neighborhood as pillars of forest green, wooden brown, ocean blue, and luminous white! Painting with the colors of my home gave me a full appreciation of my environment. My community inspires the heart of my artwork, helping me in every art piece I create through the emphasis of home and color. The artwork below particularly displays my journey into exploring my personal colors, from the rainy nights of Latin culture to the pillars of European heritage, along with the oyster beds of Bluffton South Carolina. The best part about finding inspiration is finding love in my own colors.

As an artist, I find inspiration with every glance. Whether it be from a desert found in an autumn leaf, or from an ocean resting in a rain puddle. With so much to discover, with many possible inspirations I can bring into my art, I am enthusiastic to find my passion in all of those discoveries. This particular artwork came from the core of my cultural identity, taking inspiration from my family and from my spontaneous mind of imagination & creativity. From my family's blended culture of European Heritage and South American Background, I composed this inspired by the art styles of Pablo Picasso and Frida Kahlo; it's a fantasizing combination of two worlds I am deeply rooted to. As a mixed child of Ecuadorian, Italian, and Chinese background, its difficult for me to identify myself to one culture. But this artwork is my way of displaying the beauty of all of my passion, all of my culture, all of me. I was uninhibited in creating this, spiraling with my markers in hand, releasing my fire unto to paper, and truly, having fun doing it. I sketched the design with vibrant colors of alcohol marker and defined its form with black pen and ink. Blue is represented as my Latin identity and Yellow is represented as my Italian identity. I composed my color of black and white because out of my colorful background, I wanted to display the best part of my masterpiece; my creativity within myself, branching out in vibrance and exploding with detailed chaos. I believe this ties into the MASHUP theme because of its creative blend of very distant worlds that find a connection through me, and through one surface. I AM a creative blend of very distant worlds, finding a connection to them through one medium to many. That's why this art piece is so diverse in chaotic beauty and passion to exploding colors; it is ME. The MASHUP theme's message is that "unexpected blends display genius creativity." These worlds collide unto my paper through the will of my hand and marker. A world of European mass -- medieval castles and the Italian sunflower-- mixed with a world of Latin Flair -- flamenco dances and sapphire crystals -- memorizes the surface with an explosion of color and culture. This is what I recognize as genius creativity. In the not so distant future, I want to pursue this message of mixed cultural art, mashed-up creativity. It's an inspiration I find so much passion in. I thank you for letting me share my process and share my mixed-up culture. I hope to share this chaos very soon.