Perception is quite a vast term, it belongs to anyone aware but it differs for everyone as well. Art has always been a language of perception, visualization, and meaning to the world around me. It’s defined specifically as “something that expresses an idea, an emotion or, more generally, a world view.” I was around 10 when I first realized my passion for creating; the exciting feeling of being able to capture subjects in colors and pencil markings. During my public schooling, my peers would commonly request to paint something related to our assigned projects. Open-minded I took note of the topics and came up with my expression for them. When it came time to present, there was a radiance of connection from my visual artwork. Since then, my life goal was to impact people’s lives through art and be part of communities reflecting the same goals as I. Animation was always more kindred to me to inform or influence people through principles of design and motion pictures. It struck a chord, how someone else’s concepts of characters and their stories in the movement could impact an individual to the point of sentimentality. My experience from community college was limited to only a few classes dedicated to animation wholeheartedly. However, I took advantage of every course in my program to develop myself as the artist who spoke through perceptions and desired to impact people in ways that weren’t physically possible. During my freshman year, we were assigned to draw the silhouette of a class partner and find a way to symbolize their life stories on the silhouette. I paired up with a man in his late 20’s who told me the grief he was going through after losing his newborn son. “ All I can hope is that my child is flying up there with his grandma right now,” he said. He wished for the project to be about his son’s passing as he saw it as a representation of the truest type of love in his life. I knew this piece was special because of the level of sympathy I felt for my classmate. The final piece ended up memorializing his newborn and providing support for a grieving father. With tears of happiness, he thanked me for the piece saying “it made him feel closer to his son”. Moments like those reminded me how important it is to have expressions in our lives. I admire and respect when stories, podcasts, television series, and movies have layers of depth in their art departments, care into every aspect of a scene, and understanding of how every action is driven through a story. It’s almost like the creator(s) wanted to have audiences experience a story and not just witness it. Through core values of diversity and freedom of expression, I believe education can help me grasp a better understanding of skills for visual communications,story-driven components, and impacting effects from animation. My educational goal is to learn from the animation industry and that’s why an educational institute dedicated to educating future generations of creative professionals is an opportunity too great to dismiss. After completing 2 years at Dallas college with a full Associate’s in Applied Science, I plan to transfer to a Columbus College of Art & Design, offering a 2D concentration Bachelor Degree program. As mentioned before, animation is capable of accomplishing such objectives, and as the media, I feel the most identified with, I’d like to bring more inspiring creativity into films, television series, and mainstream. Making the world a more connected place, one drawing at a time.

Art has always been a language of perception, visualization, and understanding of the world around me. It’s defined specifically as “something that expresses an idea, an emotion or a world view. I was around 10 when I first realized my passion for creating. My peers were the first recognizable form of influence, their stories and views became the graphite marks on a storyboard. I became someone who could move a pencil and give a subject form. One of my classmates during my time at community college had lost their son and while we were working on a project, he wished for it to be about his son’s passing as he saw it as a representation of the truest type of love in his life. I knew this piece was special because of the level of sympathy I felt for this classmate. The final piece ended up memorializing his newborn and providing support for a grieving father. With tears of happiness, he thanked me for the piece saying “it made him feel closer to his son”. Moments like those reminded me how important it is to have expressions in our lives. As the art media, I feel most identified with, animation has always been present for its purpose of informing or understanding people through principles of design as well as motion pictures. It struck a chord with me, how someone else’s concepts of characters and their stories in the movement could impact an individual to the point of sentimentality. Animation has provided me an expressive outlet during some of my own difficult days and that empathy is something I want to be able to give back someday. Life has an abundant amount of ups and downs but no matter where a person comes from they could always use a positive message. I am proud to say that I will continue my education at Columbus College of Art and Design, which is offering an animation bachelor's degree program for me to reach these artistic ambitions. This scholarship would loosen the tight stress of having student loan debt while in school and keep me focused on developing my skills as an artist and later as an industry professional artist. As mentioned before, animation is capable of accomplishing such objectives, and I’d like to bring more inspiring creativity into films, television series, and mainstream. Making the world a more connected place, one drawing at a time.

Being raised in a Hispanic household, you're basically groomed to eventually be an adequate and capable wife towards a man. Anything that goes against that is deemed the devil’s work or a mental illness. Most Hispanics are catholic and use that religion to power their statement of marriage being between a man and a woman. Therefore when I first spoke out about how I found interest in the same sex as well as the opposite, my family were the first people to shut down that line of thinking. It only took two sentences from them to keep that part of me to myself for years. It was just easier that way and in no way did I see changing an older generation’s mindset. That led to so much guilt and difficulty loving myself because I could never wholly love all parts of me. It wasn’t until in the last five years LGBTQ+ was getting more and more attention. I didn’t realize that this social realm existed for a rather long time because my own surroundings had manipulated me to think I was the odd one out. But having other’s voices break down barriers society puts on LGBTQ+ has made it all the easier to slowly learn to love this part of me that once others called “defective”. Today I am a 20-year-old bisexual ciswoman and I plan to join the voices that inspire many others whether in walking peaceful protest, supporting LGBTQ+ businesses, educating misinformed friends, and talking out loud about my experiences of being bisexual while Hispanic.

Mental health is one of those topics that up till the last few years has been only discussed behind closed doors or disregarded altogether. Society’s awareness and knowledge about personal mental wellbeing hasn’t been that skyscraping. Growing up around that type of environment made it incredibly perplexing, landing me in a state of confusion at a young age. Words like depression, disorders, trauma were all foreign to me, and without as much as family and peers around, I was left with growing pain. At age 12 I experienced my first suicidal thoughts, and in between the ages of 15-19, I began experiencing arduous symptoms that left me making a suicide attempt. At that point, I had run out of patience being confused and hopeless for years that I reached out for professional help. I began taking medication and speaking weekly to a LMHC/therapist. During my period in recovery, my views on mental health drastically changed. Learning how and why to take care of your body like the gut-to-mind connection and the benefits of exercising to increase endorphins in the brain/body were eye-opening things towards my own mental health. The heavy importance is to take care of your mind and keep communication open with those around you so they can better help you. Having that substantial personal support group not only provides one person aid but reflects on the supporter as they gain information, breaking unhealthy stigmas that might have resided. I no longer saw mental health as being a crippling flaw or a poor excuse to just be lazy but a responsibility to one’s own well-being. And eventually, I was able to validate my own depression as an illness, separating the disorder from the person. This journey through comprehending mental health has brought me closer to loved ones and connected to strangers from online to in person. I gained this newfound empathy towards those who struggled with similar things as me. There was this one girl I met while in the waiting room of my psychiatrist's office and we ended up opening about our experiences with depressive episodes during high school. Not the most common thing to bond about but in the end, we at least felt a little more understood and that was all that mattered. That’s what most people struggling with mental health desire to have from people around them, the ability to be heard. Patience is also one of my virtues that matured with time, for I’d have to be tolerant and accommodating towards friends who weren’t in a good space. Before, I would yell at them and shut them out for being “too emotional” or “inattentive”. Nowadays I have made it a pack to stay by a person's side through all the curveballs thrown and that has proven to strengthen our relationships more than ever. Primarily, one of the continuous things that has been present throughout my life and through my darkest moments was animation. It was one of those interests that provided a haven 24/7 with no obligations or repercussions. As a youngin, I was always so entranced by how characters moved, acted, transformed, etc. My fascination with animated cartoons only grew as the years went by, following me through to when I first began to draw. Ultimately I concluded that I wanted to base my career on making impacting visuals with consequential storytelling behind them. Animation has always been more kind to me for its purpose of informing or swaying people through principles of design as well as motion pictures. It struck a chord, how someone else’s concepts of characters and their stories in the movement could impact an individual to the point of sentimentality. Like I said before, animation has provided me a safe haven during some mentally difficult days to be less alone as well as understood and that comfort is something I want to be able to give back someday. Life has an abundant amount of ups and downs but no matter where a person comes from they could always use a positive message.

If there is one individual woman I know to be resilient and determined at only the mere age of 19, it is my mom. She came to a new country, learned its culture, and sustained a living for herself with less than half a grand to her name. And every day she chooses to continue living in the United States, is another day she’s chosen for my siblings and me to have a better life. Physically as well, she has given her strength to raise all three of us almost completely on her own. But even the strongest of people have their low times and there was a specific moment where it was our turn to show up for her. A couple of weeks ago, in late June, my mom decided that we should have breakfast at a nature preserve area to get some fresh air. After breakfast, we decided to take a walk since the nature preserve also had hiking and walking trails. We've been at the nature preserve many times before and had experience with many different types of trails, hence we didn’t see any fault with going on a mildly difficult/lengthy trail. In the beginning, the walk was going as smooth as it could be, but there came a point where I noticed my mom strolling a little slower. Moment by moment she started looking more and more fatigued. It was halfway up an incline hill that she admitted to not feeling the best. However, being as headstrong as she was, she urged us to continue walking through the path and that she’d be right behind us. The situation only got worse because every chance there was an open bench to rest at, she would take it. And suddenly, it got to the point where she was sweating and pale while hyperventilating. All she could say repeatedly was not to leave her alone and give her time to rest. She's always been a tough lady but as years go by her energy dwindles, growing older and that has definitely been a tough lesson to learn previously. Despite all misfortunes, we were lucky enough to have other people nearby to ask for some assistance. A group of a couple of hikers provided their spare clean cooling rags and others offered electrolyte drinks to make sure my mom kept hydrated and replenished. I helped maintain her body temperature stable and provided translation between the hikers and her because English was not her first language. Eventually, she got back on her feet and walked with us partially holding her for support. I thanked the kind strangers for their help and continued walking by my mom's side. Because my dad was at work that day and I was the oldest, it was mostly my responsibility to make sure my mom could make it back home without losing consciousness or losing stability in her wellbeing. By the end of that morning, we ended up back home tending to her needs and nursing her back to health. Like I said before, she is a very resilient person, which makes it all that harder for her when she is physically and mentally strained. What I took out of this unpleasant experience was the importance and responsibility of taking care of others before us. Family or not, it’s about learning to understand that strong people deserve just as much support as any other human being. Because at the core of everything that’s what we all share in common; being human and supporting one another in health and prosperity.

I remember when I was 12, realizing an attraction for both genders. It felt foreign but truthful to a part of who I was. For most of my life, LGBTQ was not widely accepted nor public as it is today so for a while I didn't speak up. But thanks to growing up in a generation with so much community I was finally able to find a place to be proud of being myself. https://twitter.com/karly_winter

I was around 10 when I first realized my passion for creating; the exciting feeling of being able to capture subjects in colors and pencil markings. My peers were my first recognizable form of influence during middle school, their stories and views became the graphite marks on a storyboard. I became the one who began to move the pencil, giving the subject form; an artistic ability. Art has always been a language of perception, visualization, and understanding of the world around me. It’s defined specifically as “something that expresses an idea, an emotion or, more generally, a world view. Generally, I do believe this was the catalyst to what everything would become. My everything is to see people’s lives impacted by art and be part of communities reflecting the same goals. Animation has always been more kindred to me for its purpose of informing or swaying people through principles of design as well as motion pictures. It struck a chord, how someone else’s concepts of characters and their stories in the movement could impact an individual to the point of sentimentality. I admire and respect when stories, podcasts, television series, and movies have layers of depth in their art departments, care into every aspect of a scene, and understanding of how every action is driven through a story. It’s almost like the creator(s) wanted to have the audience experience/understand a story and not just witness it. As mentioned before, my abilities are to give a visual of either my perception or someone else’s. A duty of being an artist. It’s one of my strongest assets: picturing a scene, a storyboard, or even a script; the visualizing sympathy. Through core values in freedom of expression, I believe animation training can help me better understand skills for visual communications,story-driven components, and impacting effects from animation. Animation is vastly capable of accomplishing such objectives, and as the media, I feel the most identified with, I’d like to bring more inspiring creativity into films, television series, and mainstream. Making the world a more connected place, one drawing at a time.

Perception is quite a vast term, it belongs to anyone aware but it differs for everyone as well. Art has always been a language of perception, visualization, and understanding of the world around me. It’s defined specifically as “something that expresses an idea, an emotion or, more generally, a world view.” I was around 10 when I first realized my passion for creating; the exciting feeling of being able to capture subjects in colors and pencil markings. My peers were my first recognizable form of influence during middle school, their stories and views became the graphite marks on a storyboard. I became the one who began to move the pencil, giving the subject form; an artistic ability. To be more specific, my parents have been the biggest influence in my life. I grew up with a lot of limitations due to the circumstances of immigration laws put towards my parents primarily. Regular average things like traveling or visiting relatives became nearly impossible. But even with such obstacles, they were always able to keep going. They have persevered for more than 20 years, determination like no other person I’ve ever known. And that is a substantial reason why they are so influential. Thanks to them, I have always had supportive guidance to keep going on and I have been privileged to have the opportunity of committing to the education based on my passions. The goals I see now are to have an impact on people’s lives through art and also being part of communities reflecting the same goals. To be just as influencing as my parents were to me, just in a different format. Animation has always been more kindred to me for its purpose of informing or swaying people through principles of design as well as motion pictures. It struck a chord, how someone else’s concepts of characters and their stories in the movement could impact an individual to the point of sentimentality. I admire and respect when stories, podcasts, television series, and movies have layers of depth in their art departments, care into every aspect of a scene, and understanding of how every action is driven through a story. It’s almost like the creator(s) wanted to have the audience experience/understand a story and not just witness it. As mentioned before, my abilities are to give a visual of either my perception or someone else’s. It’s one of my strongest assets, being able to picture a scene, a storyboard, or even a script; the visualizing sympathy. Furthermore, my own educational career goal is to learn from the animation industry and that’s why an educational institute that is dedicated to educating future generations of creative professionals is an opportunity too important to dismiss. Through core values in freedom of expression, I believe education can help me grasp a better understanding of skills for visual communications,story-driven components, and impacting effects from animation. Animation is vastly capable of accomplishing such objectives, and as the media, I feel the most identified with, I’d like to bring more inspiring creativity into films, television series, and mainstream. Making the world a more connected place, one drawing at a time.