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Suri Rodriguez

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Bio

I am a senior at Nogales High School who desires to pursue an artistic career in Illustration and Animation. I am trilingual (with two years of German experience), Spanish, and English. I have been accepted into a micro-internship program and am a member of the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS). I am skilled in writing and creativity and have a knowledge of music. I often read and focus my studies that revolve around art. I have experience in leadership positions, have done work in community service, and recently left the country for Germany on a two-week trip on May-June 2023 to study the language and interacting with the locals of the capital of Berlin. I am determined to succeed in my goal as an animator, genuinely enjoy life, and live through my studies to focus on my desired path. To have a reason to wake up and study a passion that can help me succeed and fulfill life towards new experiences to come to pursue a stud and life of animation studies.

Education

Nogales High School

High School
2020 - 2024

Miscellaneous

  • Desired degree level:

    Bachelor's degree program

  • Majors of interest:

    • Arts, Entertainment, and Media Management
  • Not planning to go to medical school
  • Career

    • Dream career field:

      Animation

    • Dream career goals:

      Drawing and Illustration

    • student

      Gear-Up Micro- Internship organization
      2022 – 2022

    Arts

    • Nogales High School Art Club

      Graphic Art
      2023 – Present
    • Nogales High School Art Club

      Graphic Art
      2023 Nogales Art Club "Starry Night Art Exhibition"
      2022 – 2023
    • Nogales Highschool Maroon Masque

      Theatre
      Clue, Play that Goes Wrong, Alice in Wonderland
      2021 – 2023

    Public services

    • Volunteering

      Gear-UP — Representative
      2021 – Present

    Future Interests

    Entrepreneurship

    Isaac Yunhu Lee Memorial Arts Scholarship
    Innocence is still present in the already-grown child, even if one doesn't admit it. This is what "Pure Light" shows in the depiction of the creature. The Ignitpadowl is how I named the creature within this piece. Consisting of a black sheet, color-pencil medium by the Prisma brand. The creations I make come from the innocent side of myself poured onto this piece. Even as a soon-to-be adult, I accept this innocence within myself which allows me to feel alive. The imagination of a child is powerful. It creates another world while living in the one today. Children escape reality through their creative minds to view the world so simple and beautiful with such ease that adults forget to appreciate and struggle to see. This is the inspiration for the artwork I made during my work in creature designs, assigned within my classroom in my AP curriculum. Using my passion for creature sketches and innovations, the piece centers around the image where adults sacrifice their inner child to succeed by society’s standards. To live, a gray-living person exists in a world rather than living in it. The piece shows the beauty in innocence one sees. How it stands out from a dark place and allows one to see the light within life. This is why many adult artists get the opportunity to escape a gray world and run into a “childish” one of color. Despite the warnings and taunts, the one being mocked lives, while the meddler exists. Life is shorter than one believes, and I would enjoy living it as a well-living artist who craves to paint the indescribable, to live in a stiff line waiting for time to run out. As a young artist, I become dull at hearing many losing their inner opportunities and being denied their ambitions by a societal standard of work everyone does. There is a lack of uniqueness now in today's world. Filled with copycats and imitations, the world lacks originality and creativity. The killer of the artist. This is why I view being persistent and stubborn to achieve a goal is rather the most beneficial way one can survive stereotypes and get trapped in a gray world. I come from a small gray community that lacks creativity and originality. This is the opposite of the career field I crave to succeed in being admitted to. I have envisioned myself out of my hometown towards art schools, far into the creative states that provide those opportunities. Currently, as a soon-to-be college freshman, I focus on being persistent and loyal to my goals in the art field. No matter people's opinions to the contrary, my artistic self will view the world by the following quote: “The creative adult is the child who survived".
    I Can Do Anything Scholarship
    The dream version of myself wakes up to live every moment of life grateful I kept standing to pursue what brings me life.
    Wild Scholarship
    The hands are the origin of the creative touch, associated with its partner, the creative mind. Being spoken by the artistic voice. That has always been my view on the beauty of art made by humans every time I set myself on a chair with a paper, a pencil, or even a leaf that can stain its color on the page. Its limitless abilities connected with the hands and mind have so many possibilities it gives to those who challenge the position of being an artist in their life. , I accepted that challenge at a young age when I picked up the pencil and created what was not real. Present day and before, I have always created creations that went beyond my creativity. My creativity longs to create stories that aren’t real, to make them real. Thus I began with simple characters, developing my writing abilities to even make stories and backgrounds for them. I began, of course, with sketches of them and used the cheapest materials of colored pencils used as a child, like many. I would color and design these characters throughout the years, seeing their evolutions and development of their design along with my style throughout the time. In the meanwhile, at an older age I developed a more vast introduction to different mediums in art I was not aware about. Which awoke more sparks of the possibilities that could be made. Thus came experimenting with other mediums such as acrylic and watercolor. Along with the newest technological method of painting, digital art. Right now, as a current senior in my high school year, I am taking an advanced placement art class and working on a 15-piece project portfolio using the strong side of my creativity being mythological creatures. The reason is my unique ability, to create, design, and write down names and descriptions of these creatures inspired by the outside world. The origin of my passion for creature designing and story making has always been movies made by the creative minds of art and movie directors. From animated series and movie sequels such as BNA (by Yoh Yoshinari), Maleficent (produced by Disney) and the Fantastic Beasts series (directed by David Yates). I have always stated that the artist creates a form of magic that actors can hold when creating a movie that the viewer can admire. To me, to create stories, and make pictures into life for all to see something fictional become nonfiction brings light to my life. As a reason to live a fantasy within reality. To live and pursue a life in the arts is limitless, and never, as I imagine, could ever always be the same. It is vast and filled with different possibilities; it makes it worthwhile, especially for one who lives for art. I have seen many people, personally, desire to pursue their dream path, but of course, life does not fulfill those courses for all. It is how life is, but I wish for that course. I am determined to succeed in at least trying to reach that path I see and not let life's misfortunes take away the inner child of the artistic human. I wish to create fantastic stories that make memories, that leave marks and messages to people's childhoods and memories. Using my abilities of creative ideas that I wish to improve and pursue to study and experience within the animation field. I wish to pursue the magic of story writing, as the world is also made by stories. “Writing stories is a kind of magic, too” (Cornelia Funke).
    Aspiring Musician Scholarship
    Music has been a constant part of daily life when walking, breathing, crying and even sleeping. Music will always be a part of the beat of my own body that connects to the one of music. It accompanies someone anywhere they go. Either heard by the people, within a cafe or store, or through the pair of headphones that disconnect a person from reality to a comforting environment. It adds a form of spark at the start of a new day that strives for human motivation and provokes an experience that one feels throughout the day. It has shown that it can understand any mood, whether it be anger, happiness, or sadness, any emotion is valid in life, such as the different types of music. Personally, it has added a form of comforting friend that understands the emotions of others, coming in a vast quantity that can connect to oneself to that day, week, or even month and understand its current feelings. Music is adaptable to any situation or time of the year of a person, like how liquid is. Such as Christmas music plays throughout the time of December. Creating the lively spark of what makes a joyful holiday. Similar to the spark it gives to the horrific month of October. Creating a playful environmental setting that makes the fun part of life enjoyable, even during the scary season. Music molds life in many unique forms, being an infinite and vast form of art that can adapt to any situation given by its vast majority of genres. Not only can it easily adapt to any mood, but even a person’s mood. Due to music being such an open-minded form of personal expression, it connects to its audience in a way words can not. It comforts one wherever they go, and can even be made by the sound of the lips and hands tipping the nearest item. Music comes within the human body and exits out in a form of color that is added into the world which helps remind the viewer where they are living. It communicates by beats to listeners nearby to understand and feel, even when a song is wordless. It aids in the speechless expression and leans more towards the hearing-form of expression. In a way music pieces are all reminders that show the enjoyable and unfortunate moments within life one accepts to be part of. With a voice alongside that understands the emotions of a person, or a song describing the world better than what one believes, it brings a sense of a safe place within life that creates a place the listener desires to see. A place shaped by the lyrics of their song. Music personally creates my world, as it does for everyone else. This is why they say, “We may all be living in the same world, but at the same time, we are all living in different worlds”.
    Mental Health Importance Scholarship
    At the start of the newest generation, awareness of the high levels of stress and depression has gotten my attention why? Especially at such young ages within the Z Generation. Perhaps the rapid changes and evolution of life has advanced so much that the newest generations need to catch up with those perfections may perhaps be the answer why. However, today is the case to no longer wonder why it is happening, but the “what can we do?” questions. Adults play off mental illness as a phase, or a simple solution, and shrug it off as a problem for adults only. However, they do not see that mental illness is also within adolescents growing up and having problems of their own, and ignoring such problems with denial can worsen it. Thus such results can affect a child’s or person’s life if their mental health is unattended too, especially for a long time. Such as a broken bone, or a cold must be tended to, so should the brain. Which is one of the most vital organs of a living being. Ignorance and denial of problems within children can affect their overall health, social abilities, and academic performances. It drains a person from their vivaciousness by the unsolved problems they face alone. Especially for an adolescent growing up, or a struggling adult adjusting to society, it is important to acknowledge the rate of increasing anxiety and depression within a society that, if left unattended to, can lead to regretful results. Unfortunately, the rates have risen in children these days. It is important to acknowledge how dire the need to focus on this situation is. It is unpleasant, from personal experience, to spend dark moments alone without knowing what to do, nor how to defeat a beast or bother within oneself that one tries to pierce out of them to feel the peace within. However, one does not know how to frame such a stressful beast; it leads to having to solve it on their own. Creating a sense of loneliness and isolation in young people toward adults that also causes the lack of asking for aid. It is important to teach children and find methods to help people communicate about their issues in a way to break the silence. Personally, it was difficult, since my mental health took away much enjoyment from what brought me to peace, as it does to many. It drains one’s spark and color. However, what always stuck with me were the vocal words or comfort from music. Music is infinite and vast. It always has a way of connecting to a part of the brain that brings one back to the earth they were born in. It brings hope and relaxation through a sense of comfort in the words sung by a stranger. Personally, it is a letter that understands one’s emotions brings back color, and helps enlight sparks previously lost. Of course, there are many other methods I use today such as drawing, or playing music that tones my mood or overwhelming feelings. All people have their sense of comfort in dealing with such issues, and to see how many do it is enough proof that the brain is a part of the body, which also must be tended to. It is not a phase nor is only applicable to adults. It happens to all beings with emotions who experience the pros and cons of life. With no judgment, it must be understood instead, especially now as times are changing, so should the minds for the better.
    Marian Haley Memorial Scholarship
    Many see education as a requirement, a ticket to success. Many see it as a burden they must get over with to succeed. However in my eyes, education is something complex, and when taught properly, it is just like life lessons. You make mistakes and learn from them, such as a math equation. For me, education is something that should be enjoyable, from the moment you learn the ABCs to the point where you memorize an entire book, captivated by its plot and engaging characters, or the main message the reader is trying to tell their audience. Education to me, is life, when taught correctly. It is off to write something peculiar such as this, but in my honest opinion, it is true. Education is life, as many do not see it that way. They are lessons we learn from, however, "they" determine whether we can move on in life by a single letter, while in life it moves on whether you make a mistake or achievement. Many should see that way too, especially students, education is life, and they must move on with it, and not expect time to wait. Currently, in my life, I am determining what my education is. It is a normal feeling I have accepted since no one truly knows what their life goals are or who they will be. Life is funny ad unexpected that way. Personally, however, I want an education that motivates me to wake up every day with a passion and spark of curiosity we are given since we can talk. Since the moment we could ask the whys, the whats, and the hows. Other than my main goal to pursue my dream and goal of becoming an animator, in which many wonder why? It is due to my second goal, to enjoy life. As many know animation is not highly-paid and not recognized within the job industry. While others strive to be doctors and lawyers, it is funny I put so much work into school to do art as a life goal and career. To draw fictional pictures on a piece of paper for the rest of my life is quite funny. Despite it also being stressful to be consistent in only that, it makes me realize how much I care about it. It is because it is something that makes my life worth living, despite its cons. It is like my second goal. Living life to the fullest. It is always tied to the goals one wishes to achieve. How can one succeed in their goes if living to the fullest isn't motivational enough to do so? In the end, if one does succeed in reaching their goals after education, they wonder what is next. Is there an end or next chapter of their book? As stated previously, to me, education is life. As taught in my biology class, life is continuous, harmonious, and has no true end, that is how education is. Every day, one is learning, whether it be in life, at work, or at school. Even taking care of a pet you learn, or when making a new recipe. To be learning is to be living. There is a quote I have learned before stating, "To live is to learn and to learn is to live".