June 09, 2022 Image He/They Junior, Fine Arts Studio Class of 1978 Fine Arts Studio Merit Scholarship $2,000Online Portfolio Denver, Colorado Describe the work you submitted for merits. My work is focused on exploring the feelings of grieving, loss, and fleeting memory, which I explore through direct gestures of line and text-heavy work in an attempt to recapture within myself the feeling of being connected to the people and experiences I have lost. Why did you decide to come to MCAD? I found MCAD to be a community that is focused on lifting artists up together and creating a generative environment. What's next for your practice? Anything you're really excited to make? I am excited to continue exploring work with transparency on glass to create physical layers to a piece. I also want to work more with casting light and shadow in relation to my drawn work. Favorite thing about college life (so far)? I love being able to work around all of my talented peers and learn about their personalities and the art they create to express themselves. Never have I been in such a supportive creative environment where everyone is inspiring one another. What inspires you? I am inspired by my friends around me and the experiences in my life that I am not able to put stories to yet. I love the feeling of being a part of something beyond yourself and trying to explain that experience to others. Do you have a favorite piece you've made? Describe it! My favorite piece as of recently is a drawn collage portrait of my sibling and me, and our father, which was drawn on a large strip of paper in graphite, which was then covered with glass. On the glass I painted only the parts of the drawing that were swathed in light, creating an abstracted view of the memory I tried to depict. Anything you're obsessed with at the moment? I am obsessed with deep-sea animals, and natural systems that keep life living where it usually wouldn't in the abyss.