The first time I realized art could change someone’s day was when I gave away one of my paintings. It wasn’t hanging in a gallery or winning an award. It was simply something I had poured my heart into, and seeing someone smile because of it made me realize art isn’t just something beautiful to look at—it’s something that helps people feel seen. That feeling has shaped the future I want to build. This fall, I will begin studying painting at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Getting there hasn’t been easy. During my senior year, I balanced school with my first job, spending long days on my feet and late nights applying for scholarships because I knew every dollar could bring me one step closer to college. There were moments when the cost of my education felt impossible, but every obstacle reminded me why I refused to give up. My education is more than a degree to me—it’s an opportunity I have worked incredibly hard to earn. As an artist, I don’t want to create work that only hangs on a wall. I want to create paintings that tell stories people recognize in themselves. Growing up, art became my way of expressing emotions that I couldn’t always explain with words. I know there are young people who feel overlooked, lonely, or unsure of where they belong, just as I have at different points in my life. I hope my work reminds them that their experiences matter and that there is beauty in being authentically themselves. The people who inspire me most are those who keep moving forward despite difficult circumstances. My family taught me resilience by continuing to push through challenges even when life wasn’t easy. My teachers encouraged my creativity and reminded me that my talent had value. Their belief in me has inspired me to become someone who gives that same encouragement to others. One day, I hope to use my education to give back by leading free community art workshops for children and teenagers who may not otherwise have access to creative opportunities. Art supplies and classes are often expensive, yet creativity shouldn’t be limited by someone’s financial situation. I want young artists to have a place where they can experiment, make mistakes, and discover confidence through creating. I also hope to mentor students who dream of attending art school, sharing the scholarship resources, portfolio advice, and encouragement that I searched so hard to find myself. When I think about the impact I want to make, I don’t measure it by awards or recognition. I think about the quiet moments: a child discovering they love painting for the first time, a student realizing their dreams are possible, or someone finding comfort in a piece of art that makes them feel understood. Education is giving me the skills to become a stronger artist, but more importantly, it’s giving me the ability to open doors for others. My goal is to create more than paintings. I want to create opportunities, confidence, and hope. If I can inspire even one person to believe in themselves the way others believed in me, then I will know I’ve made the impact I set out to make.

Challenge: “The Time Capsule Test” One of the biggest questions on Love Island is whether a couple is thinking about right now or about a real future together. The “Time Capsule Test” is designed to reveal exactly that. Each couple is given a box and one hour to create a time capsule for themselves to open one year after leaving the villa. Inside, they must include: • A handwritten letter to their future selves explaining why they believe their relationship will last. • Three predictions about their relationship over the next year. • One small item that represents their connection. • A list of five promises they want to keep after the show. After the time capsules are sealed, the couples don’t get to keep them yet. Instead, every couple presents their time capsule to the rest of the villa and explains why they chose each item and promise. Then comes the twist. The Islanders secretly vote on which couple seemed the most genuine and which couple seemed to be saying what people wanted to hear. The winning couple earns an exclusive romantic date outside the villa. The couple receiving the most votes for being insincere must complete a surprise challenge where each partner answers difficult questions about the relationship separately. Their answers are compared in front of everyone, revealing whether they’re truly on the same page. This challenge would add excitement because it goes beyond physical attraction or flirting. It encourages contestants to think about what happens after the cameras stop rolling while creating heartfelt moments, surprising disagreements, and plenty of discussion throughout the villa. Viewers would get to see which couples are truly building something meaningful and which ones are simply caught up in the excitement of the show. The “Time Capsule Test” would create emotional conversations, unexpected twists, and unforgettable television while staying true to what makes Love Island so entertaining: discovering whether love can survive outside the villa.

Growing up, I’ve always admired artists who aren’t afraid to evolve, and Sabrina Carpenter is one of those people. From watching her as Maya Hart on Girl Meets World to seeing her become a successful singer, songwriter, and actress, I’ve loved watching her build a career by staying true to herself. Her journey has shown me that success doesn’t happen overnight—it comes from believing in yourself, working hard, and continuing to grow. One thing I admire most about Sabrina is her confidence. No matter what people say, she continues creating music and performing with authenticity. That has inspired me because, as someone preparing to attend art school, I know that creative careers often come with criticism and self-doubt. It’s easy to compare yourself to others or wonder if your work is good enough. Sabrina reminds me that every artist has a unique voice, and the most meaningful work comes from embracing who you are instead of trying to fit someone else’s expectations. I’ve always loved expressing myself through art, especially painting. Art allows me to communicate emotions that are difficult to put into words. Watching Sabrina express herself through music has encouraged me to be more confident in my own creativity. She doesn’t hide her personality or experiences, and that honesty is something I hope to bring into my own artwork as I continue growing as an artist. Her career has also taught me the importance of resilience. She didn’t become successful overnight. She spent years acting, writing music, improving her craft, and taking on new challenges. That perseverance is something I relate to. As I prepare for college, I’ve spent countless hours working, applying for scholarships, and doing everything I can to make my education possible. There have been moments when the process felt overwhelming, but seeing people like Sabrina continue moving forward reminds me that persistence pays off. Sabrina Carpenter has inspired me not only through her music and acting but through the example she sets. She has shown that success comes from hard work, authenticity, and the willingness to keep growing. As I begin the next chapter of my life, I hope to carry those lessons with me while pursuing my dream of becoming an artist and creating work that allows others to feel seen, understood, and inspired.

Olivia Rodrigo’s music has always felt honest to me because she isn’t afraid to admit that growing up is confusing. One lyric that has stayed with me comes from “the grudge”: “You have everything and you still want more.” While the song is about a complicated relationship, it made me think about how easy it is to compare your life to everyone else’s and forget how far you’ve already come. This past year has been one of the hardest and biggest years of my life. I graduated high school, worked my first job, saved every paycheck I could, and prepared to attend the Savannah College of Art and Design to pursue my dream of becoming an artist. On paper, those sound like exciting milestones, but they came with a lot of stress. There were moments when I worried about paying for college, finding scholarships, balancing work, and wondering if I was doing enough. It often felt like every accomplishment was immediately replaced by another obstacle. Listening to Olivia Rodrigo reminded me that it’s okay to admit when life feels overwhelming. Her songs don’t pretend that everything is perfect. Instead, they acknowledge emotions that many people are afraid to talk about: insecurity, jealousy, heartbreak, self-doubt, and the pressure to have everything figured out. As someone who has always put high expectations on myself, hearing someone express those feelings so openly made me realize I wasn’t alone. I’ve always loved creating art because it’s another way of expressing emotions that are difficult to explain. Whether I’m painting portraits or working on a new project, I try to capture feelings that words sometimes can’t. Olivia does something similar through songwriting. She takes complicated emotions and turns them into something people everywhere can understand. That has inspired me to be more honest in my own creative work instead of trying to make everything look perfect. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from Olivia’s music is that vulnerability isn’t weakness. It’s easy to believe you have to appear confident all the time, especially when you’re starting a new chapter of life. As I prepare to move away for college, I’m excited, but I’m also nervous. I don’t know exactly what the future holds. Instead of seeing that uncertainty as something to fear, I’ve learned to see it as part of growing up. Olivia Rodrigo’s music has taught me that everyone is still learning, no matter how confident they seem. We all have moments where we question ourselves, and that’s okay. Her songs have encouraged me to embrace those moments, keep creating, and continue chasing my dreams even when the path feels uncertain. That lesson will stay with me long after the music ends.

By the time I graduated high school, I had attended five different high schools. Most people spend four years building memories in one place. I spent mine learning how to say goodbye. New schools meant new hallways, new teachers, and new faces. Every move required me to start over, and after a while, I became familiar with the feeling of being the new person in the room. During all of those changes, art became the one thing that stayed with me. My name is Princess Johnson, and I am an artist pursuing a future in painting. I create realistic portraits and personal works that explore memory, identity, family, and emotion. While art began as something I enjoyed, it eventually became something much deeper. It became the way I processed experiences that felt too complicated to explain with words. As a Black artist, I know how meaningful it can be to see yourself reflected in artwork. Some of the pieces that stayed with me most were the ones that made people feel seen, valued, and understood. That is the kind of work I hope to create. Many of my paintings are inspired by personal experiences and relationships. One of my most meaningful pieces focused on my family and the people who helped shape me into who I am today. Through realistic portraiture, I try to capture more than a person's appearance. I want to capture their story, their emotions, and the parts of them that often go unnoticed. I believe everyone deserves to have their story valued. The impact I hope to make through art is simple but important. I want people to feel understood. In a world that often moves quickly, art gives people a reason to slow down and reflect. Whether someone sees themselves in one of my paintings or gains a new perspective through my work, I want my art to create connection. This fall, I will attend the Savannah College of Art and Design to continue developing my skills as a painter. My goal is not only to grow technically but also to use art as a tool for storytelling and community. I hope to create work that encourages empathy, celebrates overlooked experiences, and reminds people that their stories matter. Art helped me find stability during years of constant change. It gave me confidence when I felt uncertain and a voice when I struggled to express myself. Now, I want to use that same power to help others feel seen, valued, and connected. No matter where my artistic journey takes me, that will always be my purpose: creating work that reminds people they are not alone.

By the time I graduate high school, I will have attended five different high schools. Most people remember high school through the friendships they kept for years or the classrooms they grew comfortable in. I remember mine through packed boxes, new hallways, unfamiliar faces, and introductions I had to give over and over again. Every move meant leaving something behind and starting from the beginning. The only thing that came with me every single time was my art. Looking back, I cannot pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with art because it has always been a part of my life. I was the kid who constantly doodled in notebooks, sketched on spare paper, and became fascinated by how a simple drawing could tell a story. What began as something fun slowly became something much more important. Art became my way of making sense of change. Each time I moved schools, I found comfort in creating. When I did not know anyone, I could paint. When everything felt uncertain, I could draw. Art was the one place where I did not have to explain myself or worry about fitting in. It gave me a sense of identity when so much around me was changing. One of my favorite memories happened shortly after graduating. For years, I had imagined sitting in a coffee shop with a sketchbook, surrounded by people reading, working, and creating. It sounds like a small thing, but it was something I had always wanted to experience. When I finally sat down with my sketchbook and a cup of coffee, I realized that I was living a moment I had dreamed about for years. It reminded me that even small opportunities can mean everything when they connect to something you love. My favorite artist is Bob Ross. While many people know him for his landscapes and gentle personality, what inspires me most is the way he approached creativity. Bob Ross believed that mistakes were not failures. They were simply part of the process. As someone who spends countless hours on realistic paintings and often wants every detail to be perfect, I find that message incredibly comforting. More importantly, Bob Ross made art feel accessible. He never acted as though creativity belonged only to the most talented people. He encouraged everyone to try, learn, and enjoy the process. That mindset has influenced how I view my own work. Art is not about perfection. It is about connection, expression, and growth. This fall, I will attend the Savannah College of Art and Design to pursue a degree in painting. For years, art has been my constant through every move, challenge, and new beginning. It has helped me express emotions I could not always put into words and has given me confidence when I felt uncertain. No matter where life takes me next, I know one thing will remain the same. Just like it did through five high schools, art will come with me.

There are things I have never said out loud, but I have painted them. Not because I am trying to be mysterious, but because there are emotions that do not translate into words the right way. They do not sit still long enough to become sentences. So instead, they become faces on a canvas, hands that look like they are holding something invisible, colors that feel heavier than they should. I did not choose art like people usually say they “choose” something. It was more like I noticed one day that it had already become the only place where I could fully exist without being misunderstood. I started focusing seriously on painting in high school, especially realistic portraits. I was drawn to the way a single expression could hold something unspoken like grief, hope, exhaustion, or peace without explaining itself. I did not always have the words for what I felt, but I could study a face long enough to understand it and then recreate it until it felt like something real I could hold onto. My life has not been long enough for me to feel fully rooted in one place. Moving between multiple high schools taught me how quickly everything familiar can disappear without warning. New hallways. New names. New versions of myself I had to build just to fit in. And every time I had to restart, I noticed something. I could lose almost everything, but I could still make art. So I did. Art became the one thing that did not ask me to explain my background before letting me in. It did not care where I moved from or how many times I had to start over. It only asked me to pay attention and to feel something honestly enough to put it on canvas. Over time, painting became less about talent and more about survival in a quiet way. Some of my pieces take dozens of hours, sometimes over a hundred, and in that time I learned something that surprised me. Slowing down is its own kind of strength. When you spend that long on a piece, you cannot fake intention. Every layer matters. Every decision stays. One of my most meaningful works was a family-centered painting that forced me to sit with emotions I usually try to move past quickly. I did not just paint what I saw. I painted what I remembered feeling in those moments, even the parts that were uncomfortable. When I finished it, it did not feel like I had created something new. It felt like I had finally put something down I had been carrying for a long time. That is what art has done for me. It has given shape to things I did not know how to release. It has turned silence into something visible. And in doing so, it has made me feel less alone inside my own experiences. As I continue into college as an art major, I do not just want to improve technically. I want to keep telling the kinds of stories that do not always get spoken out loud. The quiet ones. The complicated ones. The ones people feel before they understand. Because for me, art has never been just something I do. It is the only language that has ever fully returned me to myself.

More than one hundred hours into a painting of my sisters and me, I found myself focusing on details that most people would never notice. I kept adjusting small areas of the painting, trying to preserve the feeling of that moment exactly as I remembered it. Somewhere during those long hours, I realized I wasn't just creating a portrait. I was trying to hold onto a memory. That realization changed the way I think about art. To me, art is more than something people hang on a wall. It is a way to preserve stories, emotions, and experiences that might otherwise be forgotten. Many of my paintings are inspired by family, identity, and personal memories because those are the things that have shaped who I am. Through my work, I hope to create pieces that encourage people to reflect on their own lives and connections. By the time I graduated high school, I had attended five different high schools. Constantly being the new student taught me how quickly environments can change and how easily important moments can slip away. Through every move, painting remained the one thing I could carry with me. Art gave me a sense of stability and a way to process change when everything else felt uncertain. Because of those experiences, I understand how powerful creative expression can be. It can help people feel understood, even when they come from completely different backgrounds. As I continue studying fine arts and building a professional career, I want my work to have a positive impact by creating connection. Whether someone sees one of my paintings in a gallery, museum, community space, or online, I hope they find something that resonates with them. If my artwork can help preserve meaningful stories, spark conversations, or remind someone that their experiences matter, then I will have made the kind of impact I set out to make.

The first time I saw one of my paintings displayed in a museum exhibit, I realized art was no longer just something I did in my room after school. It was something I wanted to build my future around. Painting has always been the way I process the world around me, my family, memories, change, and emotions that are difficult to explain with words. Over time, it became more than comfort. It became purpose. As a high school senior pursuing fine arts, I’ve learned that talent alone is not enough to succeed in the arts. What matters just as much is consistency, discipline, and the willingness to keep creating even when circumstances are difficult. I’ve spent countless late nights working on AP Art pieces, refining portraits, and pushing myself to improve technically and creatively. One of my most meaningful paintings took over one hundred hours to complete and focused on the bond between me and my sisters. That piece reminded me that art can preserve moments and emotions in a way nothing else can. Moving states during the middle of senior year and facing financial and personal challenges could have made me step away from art, but instead it pushed me closer to it. Art became the one thing I continued returning to no matter what was happening around me. I’ve earned recognition for my work through school art awards and exhibitions, but the accomplishment I’m most proud of is simply continuing to create consistently. That work ethic is what I plan to carry into my career. My goal is to become a professional visual artist who supports herself through painting, commissions, exhibitions, and creative freelance work. I plan to study fine arts in college to strengthen both my artistic skills and my understanding of the business side of art. I want to build a professional portfolio, grow an online presence, and connect with galleries, collectors, and clients who value meaningful, emotionally driven artwork. While my long-term goal is to exhibit my work in galleries and museums, I also understand the importance of building multiple income streams as an artist, including commissioned portraits, prints, and collaborative design projects. More than anything, I want my art to create connection. The paintings I make are rooted in memory, identity, and human emotion, and I hope they allow people to feel seen and understood. Financial stability through art is not something I expect to happen overnight, but I am committed to putting in the work required to make it sustainable. This scholarship would help me continue developing my education, my portfolio, and the professional foundation I need to turn my passion into a lifelong career.

I spent a lot of time on my AP Art pieces, and my hands would get tired and sore from it. Not the good kind either. It made me think that nothing really ends up finished the way you picture it at first. I kept going back to fix small details that probably no one else would notice, like edges, shadows, or tiny proportions that felt off to me even when they looked fine to others. After a while, I realized that being okay at something mostly comes down to not stopping when you really want to. That same feeling showed up in my other classes. AP Environmental Science was a lot of going over material that did not make sense the first time, especially with concepts that required memorizing and then actually applying them. I had to keep working at it anyway, even when it felt repetitive. In my painting and art classes, it was about redoing work after critique. I did not like that at first, especially when I thought a piece was finished, but later it started to feel more like help than criticism. It made me look more closely at other students’ work too and understand how different everyone’s process is. Honors English made me slow down when I wrote. I was not always sure what I wanted to say at the start, but it got easier over time as I learned to organize my thoughts instead of rushing them out. I helped some classmates with their papers, sometimes just by talking through ideas with them, and learned that being nice does not mean agreeing with everything. It is more about giving people time and patience when they are stuck and helping them figure things out without making them feel worse about it. The Giles family idea of being nice and hardworking fits a lot of this. Working hard means not giving up when things drag or get frustrating, even if it means doing something over again. Being nice means using what you know to help someone else instead of trying to get ahead, especially in classes where it is easy to compare yourself to others. Money has made planning for college more difficult than it should be. It has never felt like something that would just be paid for, so I have always known I would need scholarships and consistency in applying for them. Even smaller things like supplies, transportation, and time can affect what I am able to participate in outside of school. Not having easy transportation has limited what I can do after class or stay after for, so most of my focus has stayed inside the classroom, where I can control my effort and performance. Even with that, I am still working toward my goals in art. Receiving the SCAD Distinguished Scholars Scholarship showed me what is possible when my work is recognized, especially because it confirmed that the time I put into my portfolio mattered on a larger level. At the same time, it made it clear that I will need continued support to fully reach college and stay there once I arrive. These experiences have taught me that getting somewhere is not just about talent but about consistency, patience, and sticking with things even when they feel unfinished. It is also about how you treat people while you are learning. That is what I will carry with me into higher education and beyond.