Whenever I tell people I'm an art student, I always get the question why. "You'll make no money," they say; "you'll never find a job, you're wasting your college education". Well, this is why.
Ever since I was four, I loved all kinds of art. I loved writing "books" about the adventures my fictional characters had. I loved drawing illustrations for my books. I loved finger painting. If you asked me what my favorite thing to do in school was, it was arts and crafts. But most of all, I loved movies. I loved everything about movies. I loved how you could tell a visual story. I loved the sets, the costumes, the ability for a person to become a completely different person on camera, EVERYTHING. The first movie I ever fell in love with was Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, and that started a long journey into creative and cinephile madness. For as long as I can remember, I told people I was going to be a film director.
As I got older, my passion dampened for a bit. I'm not the best visual artist, and I didn't exactly do well in art class in high school. People told me that there was a slim chance I would become famous. I started making Youtube videos when I was thirteen, and I was bullied brutally in high school for it. I no longer felt joy in doing art because I was made to feel I was no good at it. I let go of my dreams of becoming a film director and decided to pursue mortuary science.
When I got into college and started studying, I was miserable. I stopped attending class and constantly worried about my future. Finally, something jumped into my path and I could no longer study mortuary science for health reasons. While disappointed, and worried about what I would do now, I felt relieved that I no longer needed to do something that I realized I wasn't passionate about.
I thought about studying mental health and computer science for a while, but when it came down to it those things truly didn't make me happy. I considered cosmetology and while I'm really good at hair and makeup, I would be too nervous to do it on other people. I was still doing Youtube at this time, and had a decent amount of subscribers, but with school, I didn't have the time to put into my videos.
I started working in a movie theater in the summer of 2015, and my passion for cinema was renewed. I saw every movie I possibly could. I started researching independent films and started supporting underground cinema. I discovered new genres and discovered just how much film impacted me. With my revived passion in cinema came my revived passion for other art as well. I started writing again, and I took up sketching and watercolor painting. I realized just why I loved art in the first place. However, I still wasn't sure about pursuing it as a career.
From September 2015 to May 2016 I just took and studied in core classes I needed for my Liberal Arts degree while I figured out what I wanted to do. My dad wanted me to get into computers, my mom thought I would do great studying cosmetology, but those things didn't really click with me. I was still very passionate about art, and would write, paint, and watch movies in my free time.
In May, I was talking to some of my friends in the hospital, and they asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I told them that I really wanted to be a film director, but that it would be hard to make a living doing that. Then one of them said something I'll never forget: "You're here because you tried to kill yourself, right? You were obviously unhappy. I see the look in your eye when you talk about movies, I see that fire, that passion. Pursue it, because being a director is going to make you happy, and that's all that matters". She had a point, and that really stuck with me. I talked to my parents and they realized how passionate I was about this, and they decided that they would rather see me happy then have me miserable.
When I got out of the hospital, we started looking at film schools. I told my therapist and he was able to set me up with someone who's a fairly successful film director. I started working on multiple scripts at once. But overall- the passion I had since I was four years old was becoming a reality.
In short, I'm an art student because it's what I'm most passionate about. I'm an art student because I know I have a lot of great stories to tell. One day someone is going to be at the podium at The Oscars and say "And The Oscar for best director goes to...." and they'll say my name. I'm an art student because art was my first true love.
