Art has always been a part of my life. For as long as I could remember I was always the kid that drew in the corner of the classroom. I drew every day, enjoying my hobby for what it was, just a hobby, yet art became so much more to me very quickly. In 2018 I began experiencing what it was like to be a victim of bullying, every day I would walk into school, get called names, have people judge the way I look, the way I sound, everything about me became something I grew to hate. During this time I had no support system, nobody I could go to for comfort. All I had was my dog and my art. In the span of 5 months, I ended up filling over 6 sketchbooks. I drew so much that I began to realize just how much I relied on art. Art became my therapy, my escape from reality and I think I knew from that point on that I could never let it go. Art became the reason I'm still here today. Now, seven years later and in high school art still plays an important role in my life but I began to realize how I could use art to help, not just myself, but the people around me. For years I had used art as my therapy, I had never even thought about creating art for others. I had always loved dogs, even more specifically corgis. During my sophomore year of high school, I had a teacher with two pet corgis. I was naturally obsessed and I had asked if I could paint his dogs. From this painting that I made for him my sophomore year, I had become the person he had trusted to create not only the welcome sign to his wedding but a painting of that very day, adding in his corgis and his dogs that had passed away so all of them could live in that moment with him once again. Seeing the impact my art could have on others made me realize so many things. I realized that with art, you can create whatever world your heart contends. If you want to place a loved one who had previously passed away in a photo, you can. I think that made me love creating art for others, the emotions it can bring, and the memories it may hold, art can be anything. In a few months, I'll be moving on to the next chapter in my life. In the fall I will be attending the School of Visual Arts in NYC to continue my art education as an illustration major. This was probably one of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make as so many colleges with a high prestige offered me admission to their school, yet I chose to turn them down because I know deep down art is the thing I want to do for the rest of my life. I will admit I am scared since art school is such an investment and I need all the help I can get financially throughout these next four years, but I know it will all be worth it. I want to be the person who creates stories through my art and gives the viewer some kind of emotion. Art is my entire life and I just want to show others why I chose art.

Last year, a group of my friends and I placed over 600 mini glow in the dark resin ducks around our teachers room. It was a prank we played that lasted over three months and since then we've been known around the school by teachers as the duck kids. This year I wanted to revisit that in a fun little painting or bright and intense colors. So, on this massive canvas I painted the same ducks my teacher is still finding around his room and titled the painting "Cluster Duck". When I created the painting I wanted to have something to remember that time in my life and make everyone around giggle a little bit with how ridiculous the painting itself is. No matter if you know the origin behind it I wanted people to get a sense of joy from the painting. This painting was created using the prompt "memories" in my art class, and obviously this prank was the first thing to come to mind, yet if I were to paint the people placing ducks around a classroom, showing people the actually memory of what happened, I felt like nobody would get the sense of joy I felt doing something so ridiculously obnoxious for a teacher I had for three years in a row at that point. I felt like with how long we dragged it out, having ducks be our theme in our annual relay for life, a charity event raising money for cancer, after the prank, I felt like it deserved more joy. So to create this piece I used leftover ducks and placed them in a pile and used that as reference of my painting. I won't lie it was extremely tedious to draw and paint all of those ducks but I dot think I would have it any other way. When I finished the painting I just smiled, I didn't sigh of relief that its over, I genuinely had fun creating this painting. As a result everyone that I talked to afterwards began debating as to who would be the person to buy the painting. I saw how much art can change a persons day, how people smiled while I walked the halls with this piece, and how many people wanted to have this in their house. I created over thirty prints of this painting and began selling them so everyone that wanted this painting has the opportunity to have a version of it in their house. I have already been sent photos of people hanging it on their walls and the colorful frames they ordered for it. Overall this painting just makes me happy in every aspect, artistically and socially, and it made me view art in a whole new way because now I know how happy one singular piece can make a whole community happy.