How I could be a “disruptor” in my field/what unique perspectives do I have to bring to the table?
I had a lot of time growing up. And.I filled that time with creating. And not just school art projects – art was my school. My education was pretty… unconventional. With a mother who didn’t have the capacity to homeschool me beyond 5th grade, I was left with more time than other kids my age had. I had never even set foot in a public school until I went for my GED testing this June. I have fond memories of frolicking around the playroom in the wee hours of the night (sometimes until the sun came peeking over the mountains) making videos with my older brother on our little Canon point and shoot camera – we told comedies and dramas, all with our action figures and Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls.
And it wasn’t just film! In fact, I did more drawing than anything else, covering page after page of computer paper with doodles with my brother for hours on end. Comics flowed naturally from that format of filling the page with little pockets of stories. I really liked making people laugh with those comics – it was rare for me to make anything serious. And I painted! I painted, I sculpted – and I animated! I’ve been so excited to bring those skills into my assignments, like doing stop motion for the AR module and my experience with comics for storyboarding in the Visual Media class. It almost feels like everything I’ve been doing just for fun my whole life now has its place and purpose. It’s like the pieces of my rather scattered life are all falling into place.
I also taught. I taught myself how to read music when I was 12, first with the recorder and then the guitar. This practice with self-tutoring was unintentionally wonderful practice for when I finally decided to take my education into my own hands when I was 13 and tore through grades 6 to 12 in 2 years. I think that was a very valuable lesson in helping me understand what standards I would hold myself up to. I was the only one evaluating my “grades”. It was a practice of testing and reviewing and redoing. I think that practice has really helped me with both my time management and my criteria on what work to submit.
It’s certainly strange to be in a school system for the first time in my life. To go from all the free time in the world to such a full schedule has had its challenges. My work/life balance has been pretty heavy on the work side and it’s been eating away at my sleep schedule for sure, sometimes leaving crumbs of only three hours of sleep in its wake.
I feel my perspective is different because I’ve been creating in essentially a vacuum for most of my life. My family didn’t watch TV or YouTube or anything on the internet really for a large majority of my childhood, and I used art to fill in the time. I created in a vacuum and also lived in one. My older brother was my best friend growing up and I could count the number of childhood friends I had on one hand. It was ok though! But also made for a strange leap into social life, the first one I’ve ever had.
I’ve also been doing it alone for so long. Both in my education and creating, doing it alone has been the norm for me. I really enjoy working solo since it’s a familiar space, just me and whatever I’m making. But I also want to explore working with others, a completely new territory to uncover. I hope to hold on to the me who creates late at night just for me, no intention of showing the results, of getting a reaction or feedback. I was a lone creator first and I think that self-sufficiency will really help me in this program.
