- It was quite clear to me since I was a child
that creating made me the most happy.
I made the choice to really pursue it around 15.
That's when I really knew that I needed this
to be a part of me.
- I grew up watching skate videos,
loving skateboarding videos to death.
And then I went to film school
and I kinda realized I love filmmaking so much,
but I don't want to just make a normal skate video.
I need to do something original.
- I've always been around photography.
My dad was an editor at Time Magazine
and my mom, she's an illustrator.
During my teen days I was rebellious against it,
but then around when I was 19 or 20
I just picked up a camera again,
just started taking photos of stuff and I really loved it.
- Designing for interior design,
it's a little different than other departments
throughout the school or other ways
I could express myself artistically,
because I have to fit it within a certain functionality.
Sometimes I find that when spaces are put together,
there's always a spot that's forgotten about
and I really enjoy being able to devote the time
in a design to really manipulate it
and move it to the right direction,
so every spot feels comfortable and holistic to the design
and nothing's really left out.
- I wanted to go into advertising
because it has this creative freedom
of doing whatever I want, but it still has
to have a real life aspect to it.
I can use every technology or every art direction
that I want for the solution, I could do film,
I could do online, I could do mobile,
so I can actually do all the different aspects
of art in this one discipline.
- Cartoonists are definitely jugglers
in terms of different skills.
You need to think more dynamically.
You need to know how to illustrate,
shade, you need to know lighting.
And I think the most important thing
is learning and realizing what psychologically
makes the reader feel different things.
So a cartoonist has to think about
all these different elements and put them on the page
in such a way that is so clear, your grandma can read it.
- I love painting, but if it's finished, it's finished.
You can't change it anymore.
With sculpture, especially working with living organisms,
they will keep on growing and changing.
It becomes a collaboration, in my mind.
The installations I'm working on
are interactive, so they need the viewer
to participate in order for them to work.
I'm working with living organisms and the collaboration,
that's the same I wanna happen for (mumbles).
- I've always drawn.
My favorite things to draw is probably expressions.
I just love doing it and going through
the whole process of emotions and all that.
And even just gesture drawing, I love gesture drawing.
- When I came to this department,
I wasn't familiar with any of the programs.
I knew Photoshop, didn't know Maya,
a lot of people kinda had dabbled in it.
So coming here and they throw all this information at you,
there was very complex pipeline to all this stuff.
So having my mind open to that changes everything.
- Sometimes you do work and you have to print it out.
Like you have to print it out to see how it really looks
'cause you can be fooled by how it looks on the screen.
Something that I've learned here definitely
is just doing a lot and getting used to re-doing a lot.
I feel like you can't get too attached.
- There's a lot of different definitions of art
and I think one of the most important ones
is good art is something that changes your life
or makes you rethink something or it sticks with you.
And it's nice to see that that's sort of
starting to happen with my work.
- I hope my work speaks from self.
My strengths are I think conceptual thinking.
I think I can handle multiple tasks really well
and I can work with different teams easily together.
This year, senior year, I think I had three, four
different teams all working with me.
So that was great, great experience
just with working with different people.
Film people, photography people
and advertising and design people.
- My experiences have been phenomenal.
I really made relationships from going to school
or the internships that I've had that will round me
for the rest of my future and my career.
- When I came to SVA, it felt really natural
because it just felt kinda independent,
like I could think for myself, I could be myself
and I knew that I wanted to go here.
(uplifting music)