My art is a way to explore and express the thoughts that are incapable of being put into words. With art, I can communicate my memories and my emotions to my viewer exactly as I have perceived them. When I create, I feel the world around me dissolve, leaving myself and my work to each other. I feel as if my paper, my paint, and my pens guide me just as much as I do them. It’s like therapy. I tell my materials what I’m thinking and they guide me to the final result. We collaborate, grow, and speak to each other. It has become one of my greatest tools in my recovery from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and sexual abuse. My current artistic portfolio concentrates on my growth from childhood to adulthood, exploring how it feels to indulge in the nostalgia of the past while living in a viscerally uncertain reality and identity. While I made this body of work, I was navigating how to deal with my new reality in the aftermath of my abusive relationship. I found my solace and safety in my art classroom, exploring these new emotions under the umbrella of my practice. My pieces communicate emotional states beyond the boundaries of time. My viewers can connect with me as a child and me as an adult within the same viewing, building a closer relationship with me as an artist through my past context of safety and my present context of pain. In these interactions, I’ve experienced the truly powerful purpose of art: to inspire change. My voice as a survivor is strong and important. It is considered taboo to speak as a victim of rape and sexual abuse, and we are consistently silenced in favor of protecting the accused. I believe by using my art to speak out about my experience with sexual trauma, I can enact great change for women and survivors who are suffering. So many women have been killed by their abuser, became responsible for a child from rape, or have become so mentally affected by their experience that they are unable to attend school. I am extremely lucky to have narrowly escaped that, and I feel a deep responsibility to those women to advocate for them. By studying Fine Arts at the University of Southern California, I have nearly unlimited access to the resources needed to expand my practice beyond my financial limitation, exploring installations, three-dimensional work, and large scale photography and painting as ways to communicate my experience in ways I couldn’t before. Additionally, the gallery exposure and career resources offered to me by my education are instrumental in platforming my work, which may struggle without the network created by receiving a degree at such a well-established school. While I am so blessed to have received a full-tuition grant from USC, I am still solely responsible for my living expenses as a student, as I have no financial support from my parents. Receiving the Angela Engelson Memorial Scholarship would provide me a month of rent, art materials, and personal health expenses that I would otherwise have to take out a private loan for. With this funding, I can devote more of my time to furthering my mission of advocacy through my education rather than working part-time to afford it. Thank you so much for the opportunity to apply, and I am so excited to continue my arts education at USC.

My name is Norea Watson and I think that my lifelong commitment to leadership, empowerment, and the arts makes me an excellent candidate for the Christian Fitness Association Scholarship. My record of leadership and community service started with the Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana, in which I served for 12 years, becoming an Ambassador and implementing 5 years worth of free period products for students in all of our county schools as my senior project. The Girl Scouts also taught me entrepreneurship skills at an early age, which is how I started my art vendor business at age 14. As a matter of fact, lots of my current activities developed while I was in elementary school! Around this time, my mom started enrolling me in local art classes and I began to play the violin. By my senior year, I had received All-District playing awards and was second-chair of my school’s Chamber Orchestra, the highest graded student orchestra in our region. I still play, and am registered to take lessons this upcoming school year and audition for the USC Student Symphony Orchestra. I also began doing academic team in the 3rd grade, something I continued into high school and now participate in as a member of USC Quiz Bowl. In high school, I captained my team for all four years and became one of the top 10 Arts & Humanities testers in Kentucky, as well as a top 20 individual quiz bowl player. I continued my community service and leadership in high school by joining the National BETA Club and serving as President my senior year. During my tenure in the club, I became the reigning state champion for Drawing, raised $5,000 to take our design team to nationals for the first time in years, and recycled over 10,000 bottle caps from the school to create a bench for our undeveloped soccer field. I was also the National English Honors Society Vice President. In which I handled all communications for the club and consistently volunteered at the Grayson County Alliance Food Pantry, packing weekly food pickups for families in need. My record of accomplishment and service led me to being accepted into both the Kentucky Governor’s Scholar’s Program and Kentucky Governor’s School for the Arts, the state’s foremost and most competitive summer programs for students. I was the youngest attendee in GSA history at 14, attending for Visual Art. My acceptances were based on my community service (over 400 hours), high school grades (4.15 GPA), and awards, including two Gold Medal Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and being an AP Scholar with Distinction. Throughout high school, I began curating an online presence under the handle @noreasart, posting content on Instagram and YouTube relating to my art and lifestyle. As of 2026, I’ve amassed nearly 2,000 followers and 1.5 million views across both platforms. This experience led me to my most recent work positions as a Social Media Intern at East Side Ink, New York City’s oldest tattoo shop, and a Social Media Ambassador for my previous college, SVA. There, I created multiple viral videos for our marketing team and personally represented SVA online on a global level, connecting to my peers and our faculty beyond my classes and extracurricular activities. Before I transferred to USC, I was studying Animation at SVA, one of the top 5 animation programs in the country. There, I was a member of Women in Animation, Women Supporting Women, and Figure Drawing Club. I created an animated short film by myself called “DATE NIGHT,” which was a Semi-Finalist in the Best 2-D Animation category at the New York Short Animation Festival. I’m currently working as a visual development artist and producer on a group short film called “The Finer Things” with some of my peers from SVA, which will be circulating student film festivals this coming Fall. While animation is an art form that I love and pursue independently, I found it to be too commercial for my personal artistic goals. As a victim of sexual abuse and a lifelong feminist, my artistic mission is to raise awareness and advocate for other victims of sexual violence, something that is not widely supported in such a corporate field. This led me to transfer to the University of Southern California for a degree in Fine Arts and a double minor in Cinematic Arts and Screenwriting, the top college in the nation for film, and one of the top 15 colleges in the nation for fine arts. Here at USC, I am more supported artistically and financially to pursue conceptual and innovative work rather than a corporate position. I plan to continue my community service at USC through an organization I have planned called S.H.O.R.E.S (Survivors Helping Others: Relief, Empathy, and Support), which will provide a community to students who have experienced assault, as well as resources for mental health support, feminine products, and sexual healthcare. Despite being blessed to have received full tuition at USC, I’m still struggling to pay my monthly living expenses ($1,300/month) for the upcoming school year. Receiving the Christian Fitness Association Scholarship would graciously cover a month of these expenses, relieving me of financial stress and the need to work more part-time hours, allowing me to focus more time on my studies, advocacy, and artistic practice. Beyond that, it would affirm that my achievements and impacts are worthwhile, and that others see potential in my success. I am so grateful for the opportunity to apply, and I hope that this scholarship finds itself in the most deserving hands!

As an artist and filmmaker, my practice is deeply intertwined with my personal life experiences, and this has been especially true since I survived sexual abuse, rape, and intimate partner violence from the ages of 14-16. My art school portfolio was centered around my personal growth and maturity since escaping my abuser—representative of my personal mission to express my trauma journey in my artistic practice. I painted about my life saving birth control, my innocent childhood self, and the struggling yet hopeful person I’ve become in the aftermath. I landed as a transfer student to the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design. At USC, I want to use the exposure Roski provides me to build a community of artists, survivors, and supporters with my art. My goal is to bring mass visibility to women’s suffering in a society that disenfranchises abuse survivors, assault victims, and those that live in the shadow of these life-altering events. Within this community, I want to build a physical, art-centered space where others can share their experiences, and where those in need can gain support through donations, supply drives, and legal support, promoted by myself and community events. I plan to start this by establishing a service organization at USC, “S.H.O.R.E.S.” (Survivors Helping Others. Relief, Empathy, and Support), focused on providing feminine products, healthcare support, and mental health resources to students suffering from the effects of sexual violence and lack of women’s resources. Post-graduation, I want to continue these efforts through an online community, and eventually establish an in-person gallery and community space to host similar events. As a content creator and social media manager, I possess the skills needed to keep up a successful online presence and engage with an online audience. The WCEJ Thornton Music and Art Scholarship would be instrumental in helping me achieve this mission by supporting my education as a low-income, first-generation student and the child of a single father. Without outside financial support, I can’t afford my monthly living expenses on campus, despite my full-tuition scholarship. With the WCEJ scholarship, I would be able to cover my living expenses and afford the necessary materials for my art, continuing my mission without the added stress of overworking in order to pay for my necessities, preserving my mental health and creating more time to dedicate to my artistic practice.

Two weeks ago, I was officially diagnosed with Chronic PTSD after struggling with severe symptoms for the past year and a half from sexual abuse and rape. Learning to live with it untreated throughout senior year was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I couldn’t explain to my parents why I threw up every morning before school, or why I woke up screaming at night, and why most of my friends drifted away after I started having panic attacks during school. My goal in attending college became less about getting a well-paying job or quality education, but instead getting as far away from my trauma as my financial aid would carry me. And so, I ended up at art school in New York City, where I began my healing process. I sought talk therapy from the school’s counseling service and used my studies to distract me from my pain. Despite being happy to be away from my past, I didn’t feel like my education in Animation was as fulfilling to me as I had hoped. In the process of healing from my trauma, I had grown and changed so much as a person that my dreams and aspirations had completely shifted. As a result of being abused, I found myself more in-tune to the ways in which women across all demographics, specifically victims of intimate partner violence and sexual abuse, were being attacked, oppressed, and disenfranchised by our current government. As an artist and a storyteller, I found myself strongly compelled to share my story through my art, and to use my practice to speak out against injustice in our country, something that the corporate animation industry does not allow for. I decided to pursue the change I wanted to be. I began transfer applications to various schools and programs that were more suited to individual artistic expression. I made artwork inspired by my personal growth in therapy, in which I raised awareness about things like PTSD and birth control access, something that personally saved my life. This body of work gained me admission to the University of Southern California’s Roski School of Art and Design on a full tuition scholarship, where I will be attending in the fall as a sophomore transfer student. I chose Roski because of the major’s open curriculum and conceptual focus, something that will allow me to explore my complex experience as a sexual trauma survivor through multiple artistic mediums. Roski also has incredible opportunities for student exhibitions through our campus museum and at other prestigious Los Angeles spaces, giving my art the exposure it needs to have my intended impact: advocating for abortion and contraceptive access, raising money for survivors’ legal fees, and helping women and others feel seen and represented loudly, without shame. While I am so blessed to have received full tuition from USC, my single father cannot afford to contribute to my education and I am fully responsible for the $1,300 a month in living expenses I have remaining for the school year. Receiving the Ethel Hayes Scholarship would relieve me of the cost of 4 months of groceries, supplies, and rent, giving me the freedom to focus more on my studies and artistic practice over working part-time to afford these costs. My artistic aspirations reflect the mission of the Ethel Hayes Scholarship, and will further the efforts of mental health destigmatization as I create work about my trauma and my consequential growth. This scholarship opportunity would completely change my life next semester, and with this additional funding, I will be able to put my full effort towards changing others.

I chose a career in animation because of its unique nature as an art form: it allows me to tell a story without the limitations of live-action media and control every aspect of the film to perfectly execute my artistic vision. I want to be a creative director for animated film and television, eventually making my own films and (hopefully) becoming the youngest person to win the Best Director Oscar and the first for an animated feature. Through film, I want to represent the diverse experiences of people from rural areas like myself, as well as those who are struggling with mental health, poverty, and abuse. These stories are important to me because they’re the stories of myself and my loved ones who are isolated, unrepresented, and stigmatized by media and culture. I want to change that. Though I’m dedicated to succeeding in my field, only 17% of leadership positions in the animation industry are held by women, and the struggles of attending college as a low-income, first generation student and child of a single father stacks the likelihood of success heavily against me. Along with my financial struggles, my residence in rural Kentucky denies me access to artistic resources and as a result I am almost entirely self-taught, putting me at an educational disadvantage against my peers in college. Despite this, I’m determined to excel beyond the expectations set for me, meaning I must seek financial assistance outside of my school and government if I want to make my dreams happen and study at a place most beneficial to my career. Receiving the Achieve Potential Scholarship would validate my socioeconomic struggles and everything I’ve accomplished to achieve my dreams in spite of them, ultimately supporting my creative mission and artistic talent in my decision to pursue animation. In the fall of 2025, I will attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City—one of the highest ranked and most rigorous animation programs in the country—as a recipient of the highly selective Silas J. Rhodes Merit Scholarship. At SVA, I’ll be learning from industry professionals, have access to state-of-the-art technology, and have direct internship opportunities at animation studios built into my curriculum. SVA students are also consistently awarded for their outstanding achievements in the industry, winning Emmys and Oscars while exhibiting their award-winning student films at global film festivals, which I will also have the opportunity to do through their student submission program. Opportunities like these are invaluable when launching my career. Exhibiting my own films allows me to demonstrate my leadership abilities and creative vision in ways that I can’t at other schools, while learning from industry professionals gives me the skill set I need to enter the industry post-grad. The opportunity to study at the School of Visual Arts with my scholarship is truly once in a lifetime, though I still can’t afford the estimated $40,000 left over. My father works overtime every week to support me and my brother and is unable to contribute to my education; the most I’ll be given is an allowance for groceries. It would deeply pain me to succumb to my financial circumstances and give up on my lifelong dream because of my economic status. The Achieve Potential Scholarship will help me surpass my financial struggles so I can thrive in an educational environment that rewards my years of hard work and artistic accomplishment and successfully propels me to the next chapter in my career. Thank you for the opportunity to apply and the thoughtful consideration of my application, as well as your continued support for disadvantaged students like me.

My piece, “Comfort,” aims to embody exactly what its title suggests: the joy and safety I find in what might be considered “childish” for my age, specifically my lifelong collection of stuffed animals I sleep with every night. During the transition from childhood to adulthood, we often are encouraged to “let things go” by our peers, media, or even family, which for some, may even mean abandoning duly-held interests in the pursuit of “growing up.” As I’ve uncovered in my journey through teenage self-discovery, I don’t need to “let go” of anything, but instead, I should embrace my playful personality and the things that bring me joy in order to feel fulfilled. Since I was a baby, I have always slept with some kind of stuffed animal in my bed. In fact, the beige and white bunny in the center of the piece (“Big Bunny” as I call him) is one I’ve had since I was eight months old; he has never left my side. When I was younger, I was an insomniac and had restless leg syndrome, and the only thing that would help me fall asleep was holding a stuffed animal. As I grew older, my insomnia and RLS worsened as a result of my anxiety. I found that to relieve my anxiety, I needed a crutch, and I could come home and find peace in the arms of a stuffed animal. I never fully understood why I’ve found them so comforting. Perhaps it's because, as a child, I assigned them names and personalities and treated them like they were real human friends, and now, coming home after a bad day to clutch a stuffed animal feels like hugging a long-lost BFF. Regardless of why, my habit has continued into my teenage years; I’m now preparing to take my army of comforting characters to college. I’ve been ridiculed by family and even some friends for sleeping with them “like a baby,” but I don’t care what they think—I love my stuffed animals. To properly convey a comforting feeling in “Comfort,” it was necessary to be technically distinguished in order to achieve a realistic visual and sensory effect. Though it was a challenge to attempt, finishing it successfully to my desired degree of realism made it the most creatively gratifying piece I’ve made to date, which is why I consider it my favorite. The realistic texture of the stuffed animals intentionally invites the viewer to embrace the literal feeling of comfort we find in nostalgic items such as childhood blankets and stuffed animals. The slight rainbow tint to the colors and the Expressionist-inspired night sky background also serve to create a dreamy feeling associated with sleep and childhood memories, as well as softening the piece to make it more visually inviting. “Comfort” represents an important milestone in my development where I began to disregard the opinions of others in favor of indulging in my childish interests—interests and aesthetics that ultimately informed my decision to pursue a career in animation. My goal is to make films that inspire a new generation of children to embrace their unique personalities and overcome their disadvantages as low-income students to achieve their dreams, just like I have. I believe that by empowering others to embrace their individuality and their interests, the world becomes filled with incredible, overwhelming joy. Sleep with stuffed animals. Don’t “grow up.” Life is better when we embrace what makes us happy.