I spent a lot of my early life as someone else. As an only child, I spent my time entertaining myself. My environment became something entirely new. My bedroom became a pirate ship with sails made from sheets. My backyard became a jungle with brooks as deep as oceans. My creativity allowed me to live in a world outside my own, and experience things outside my life. My desire to create has followed me everywhere, and I consider my creativity an important aspect of my life that drives everything I do. I had a group of friends in my neighborhood growing up and we would spend our afternoons and summers playing outside for hours in worlds of our imagination. We created in-depth characters, worlds, and stories for us to explore. We were survivors in a zombie apocalypse, with backpacks full of snacks and weapons made from sticks. We were scientists, fighting alien overlords, creating high tech weapons. Our ability to leave the world around us and create entire universes with nothing but our imagination is what started my love for creativity. Daydreams became reality as we spent hours living different lives and learning more about ourselves. Through stories we were able to experience things that we never would have otherwise, learning lessons and solving problems we would never actually have to face. These events remind me that creativity and imagination is a part of human nature, and allows people to experience things, to answer questions about themselves and the world around them, and to inspire them throughout their lives. It is this love for creating and make-believe worlds that led me towards my passion of animation. Whether it be reading books, watching movies, or playing video games, being able to dive into new worlds is an amazing part of human culture. There is an astounding amount of imagination that goes into books like Harry Potter, movies like Spirited Away, or video games like The Last of Us. Such unique stories, visuals, and characters moved me and many others in indescribable ways. These creators' abilities to tell stories, form messages, and move people, is one of the most inspiring things to me. Everything from their use of stunning visuals to gameplay, to character development is an incredible feat of design that I want to be a part of. An example of impactful work I am trying to make is an assignment that had to do with memory. I grew up around nursing homes and wanted to delve into my feelings of how that experience shaped me. In my piece, I explored small pieces of the environment– the clicking of my grandmother's heels on the linoleum, the feeling of wrinkly skin meeting my own, and the small silhouettes of individuals as they traversed the halls. I used these visuals not only because they are strong memories of mine, but because they invoke those same feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and an uneasy type of fear that I have come to associate with nursing homes. The film is titled “you’ll take care of me?” That is a question my grandmother would repeatedly ask me. While she never shared with me her feelings about the place, I believe she too felt the fear and isolation that so many elderly individuals face. Faced with the impact the environment can have on people’s quality of life; she too wanted the confirmation and security that someone would be there for her in her time of need. She wanted to know that she would be taken care of when she could no longer take care of herself. Growing up in a nursing home impacted my identity more than I realized. I have valued and participated in community service from a young age, and in high school, I returned to nursing homes as a volunteer. In my senior year, I even hosted a paint night where I gave a painting tutorial to a group of seniors. In small ways, I was trying to counter those feelings of loneliness and desolation that they may have been feeling, to create a better environment filled with empathy, collaboration, and of course art. That feeling of abandonment, of hopelessness and misunderstanding that so many elderly people face is one we can all understand. It is an understanding and connection I only could have come through given the opportunity to explore those memories in an effort to recreate them. With my piece, I hope that I am able to awaken that idea within others and inspire them to be more compassionate to the elderly people of our world. Through the animation industry, I will be able to help bring these inspiring stories to life. To work with a team of like-minded individuals to engage with the next generation in new and exciting ways. While my work now is of a more fine and independent nature, I dream of working in animation for entertainment, graphic design, or even educational purposes. The task of designing cohesive projects that can bring about change in the world is a task I would like to uptake. My education means the world to me as I aspire to innovate and create media for everyone. Creating art is powerful. It is passionate. I want to combine my creative passion with my love for other worlds in order to inspire others in ways that I have been inspired. I want to be a part of the process that brings ideas to life, that turns imagination into reality. I want to learn and to grow alongside others who will continue to ignite my passion and help me succeed. I want to make an impact on people's lives, to not only entertain them, but bring them into a world that will stay with them throughout their lives. I want to use animation as a tool not only for entertainment but to invoke feelings within others and insight a change in perspective. Portfolio: https://noahgagnebin.myportfolio.com

I feel I am most creative when I am creating for a cause. I find that my best work comes from when I am trying to invoke a feeling or idea within my audience, encouraging them to see things from a different perspective. My lived experiences often serve as inspiration for my artwork. For my final in my animation class, we were encouraged to create an animation under the theme of a specific person or place. I wanted to choose someone or somewhere that invoked a strong atmosphere I could try and recreate. Throughout my early childhood my grandmother worked as a Director of Nursing in a nursing home, and I spent a lot of time there with her while my parents were at work. Remembering that experience, and the nursing home she worked in, has always made me feel uneasy in a way I couldn’t quite explain. You would think that spending so much time there that I would become more accustomed to the environment, however for a long time nursing homes always made me uncomfortable. For my project, I thought the best way to convey the feeling of growing up in a nursing home was to explore what it was that was affecting me in such a way. In my piece, I explore small pieces of the environment. The clicking of my grandmother's heels on the linoleum, the feeling of wrinkly skin meeting my own, the small silhouettes of individuals as they traversed the halls. I used these visuals not only because they are strong memories of mine, but because they invoke those same feelings of emptiness, loneliness, and an uneasy type of fear that I have come to associate with nursing homes. The film is titled “you’ll take care of me?” That is a question my grandmother would repeatedly ask me. While she never shared with me her feelings about the place, I believe she too felt the fear and isolation that so many elderly individuals face. Faced with the impact the environment can have on people’s quality of life, she too wanted the confirmation and security that someone would be there for her in her time of need. She, just like her patients, wanted to know that she would be taken care of when she could no longer take care of herself. Growing up in a nursing home impacted my identity more than I realized. I have valued and participated in community service from a young age, and in high school, I returned to nursing homes as a volunteer. In my senior year, I even hosted a paint night where I gave a painting tutorial to a group of seniors. In small ways, I was trying to counter those feelings of loneliness and desolation that they may have been feeling, to create a better environment filled with empathy, collaboration, and of course art. That feeling of abandonment, of hopelessness and misunderstanding that so many elderly people face is one we can all understand. It is an understanding and connection I only could have come through given the opportunity to explore those memories in an effort to recreate them. With my piece, I hope that I am able to awaken that idea within others, and inspire them to be more compassionate to the elderly people of our world. As I could not include my film, I included some key stills from it.