If I am to be completely honest, I didn’t like Chappel Roan’s music the first time I heard it. When I heard clips of her songs rotating around TikTok and Instagram, I thought it to be generic queer pop music that had been done before. I thought that people who said she was pioneering a genre that hadn’t existed before her were either embellishing or just had never heard Bowie or Saint Vincent. When I finally sat and listened to her album “The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess,” however, I immediately realized how special she is. Her talents are matched by very few, her vocal range showing not only how much care she puts into practicing her music, but also the emotions she feels in every song. I think her ability to remain so undeniably human while acquiring such a large audience as quick as she has is respectable and inspiring. As a midwestern queer person, I’ve found comfort in her story, growing up in a hostile religious environment where queerness was shunned and buried. Her EP “School Nights” brings back the feelings of going to school in my small town and feeling the fear and anger of being seen as a mistake. It makes you feel like you deserve that “good hurt” for being wrong. Her music dives into the pain she experienced in her teens, with past loves and lost memories. I began to respect her more and more as I pieced together her experiences through her music, especially delving deeper into her song “Pink Pony Club.” That fear of disappointing those who loved her growing up, namely her mother, after leaving and finding herself in a new life, is something I connect with at a deep level. Once I left for college two years ago, I found myself through experimenting and trying new things, with gender, sexuality, and just opening my personality. I bloomed once I left home and moved to the city, and I really do think it’s where I belong. I know so many people who experienced that same revelation and I find it beautiful how we can all connect to this music and find our own meanings in Chappell Roan’s gorgeous runs and goosebump-inducing belts. I’ve found a piece of myself in her music, and I feel it will encourage me to jump out of my comfort zone and try something new. I only hope someone’s there to say, “Good Luck, Babe!” when I do.

Adversity sprouts creativity, in my opinion. Writing, music, and visual arts have always been my therapy, and have helped me to process the events that have happened in my life. I’ve seen it in myself, in family members, friends, strangers, and all of history. Art is made to process love, loss, pain, happiness, fear, isolation, genius. It’s so inspiring to witness art being made by people all throughout the world as a way of expressing and processing events in their lives, through war and poverty and oppression, through struggles with identity and with health, both mental and physical. My friends and family write songs, books, poems, make paintings and drawings, all to express themselves. I look at this, and I look at the world, and I think of my own struggles and adversities and almost weep as I become overwhelmed by the passion I see. I want to be an artist who inspires, and who future generations, whether it be just in my family or all over the world, can look up to and can admire. I want to join in the world’s creativity and make my story heard and seen and read. Life is beautiful as an artist, which is why I must create, and continue to immerse myself in every type of art I can find. Since I was a baby, my life has been full of music and color, dancing and laughter. My mom was an art student, and she passed on a lot of fun activities and passions she gained in school onto me, which in turn sparked an early love for drawing in me. My mother is a very large inspiration to me, as she showed me that anything is possible, no matter what age you are or where your skills lie. She started singing in bands at the age of 45, she’s had a side gig as a landscape artist for the past 30 years, and she’s never given up on painting. I’m following a lot in her footsteps, but I’m also inspired by the rest of my family. My brother is a talented musician, my uncle is a painter, my dad makes the most wonderful, whimsical drawings. I’ve been surrounded by art and the appreciation of art my whole life and it’s helped me feel secure in pursuing my career as an artist. My dad’s brothers, my uncles, were both artists. They’ve always encouraged me to keep drawing and to pursue new outlets and mediums. My dad’s youngest brother passed away, back in 2016, and while that beat me down, it also made me stronger and gave me more initiative to create and take all the opportunities presented to me in life. I look to him for inspiration and motivation to find new passions and create new, soulful works of art. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve been connecting more to these emotions, and that has really shaped what type of artist I want to be.

I've always loved creating. My parents lit that fire in me early in life by encouraging my creativity and showing me the world. I've always been excited to try new mediums and explore each material entirely. When COVID hit and I was in high school, I fell into a lot of watercolor and guache work, something I've never used seriously before that time. Painting then, and experimenting with other materials such as crayons, acrylic, and digital collage, really allowed me to break free from the dread I was feeling and allowed me to understand what art means to me. My high school art teacher was also a big help for my creativity at that time, because she encouraged me to go outside the box, and still today talks about my work during lockdown. She told me that the things I made, and the materials I experiemented with, inspired her and made COVID a little more fun for her. I miss that teacher, and the other arts teachers at my high school, because they all encouraged me to go beyond the other students and strive for success. That encouragement was the reason I submitted a portrait I'd done of myself in freshman year to a local gallery that was hosting a competition for local high school students. My portrait was among hundreds of other students' works, and though I didn't win any prizes from that event, I gained a look into the worlds of my peers and was even more inspired to work my creativity and make my art unique. I am now a college student, attending the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and I have not lost that inspiration - rather, everywhere I look in that school I gain even more. Something I really love about MIAD is the approach they take to having students try new things. My freshman year at that school was spent almost entirely doing things that had nothing to do with my major and I absolutely loved every second of it. The classes I was able to take included Fabrication, Systems of Drawing, and Photography. Each of these classes taught me something I'd never known in my almost 15 years of creating art. One specific thing I loved about my Fabrication class was our unit on woodworking, in which I created one of my favorite pieces of art: two wooden bugs that were designed as a puzzle. The point of the unit was to take inspiration from nature and create symbols that could connect and form one object. I also created my first real stuffed animal in that class, my inspiration coming from homesickness, as I was 4 hours away from home in another state at the time. I mixed the concept of the night sky with the image of a cat to highlight the two things I missed the most about home. I loved that class, in short, because it taught me a lot about fine arts, and also made me realize that both woodworking and sewing are incredibly fun hobbies that I will be pursuing in the future. After college I intend to pursue a life as a freelance illustrator, as well as a graphic designer. I'm sure my plans will change as time moves forward and I learn new skills and meet new people, but I hope my love for illustration never waivers. I also hope to be able to make a full career and live a comfortable life off of my art, being able to travel and explore the corners of the world for more inspiration.

My parents led much more interesting lives in their teens than I ever will - one, because I don't live in a city, and two, because I won't be a teenager for much longer. Their stories about their times as kids, though, are vibrant and leave me wishing I could have been there to see it all - though perhaps not all of it, per say, as morbidity is always a common theme in my mother's stories, but the rest always sounds like fun. While this piece is not directly inspired by any of those stories, I channeled my love of my parents into it as best I could in order to capture the, admittedly over-romanticized, aesthetic of life in the '80s. This piece came with its struggles, such as capturing the movement and the colors in a way that translated how I felt about the subject matter. I remember it being an escape for me, though, as I was going through a tough period at school and in life when I drew it. This escape, and the hundreds of others before and after it, have helped and will help me to overcome any challenges thrown my way. My emotions bloom through my art, even when I don't intend for them to, and that's why I won't ever stop creating it.