When I was around 7 years old I saw a movie called “Spirited Away” by Hayao Miyazaki and it changed my view of art forever. I remember seeing the main character and noticed how smoothly she moves, and how magical the creatures and dragons made me feel when I saw them gracefully fly across the screen. I became obsessed with Miyazaki movies. I would beg my mother to find more of his movies and I would sit and practice drawing the characters I saw. It was then that I decided that I wanted to follow in his footsteps and become an animator. However, as the years went on and life got in the way my goals changed; it took me a few years and hardships to bring myself back to the realization that doing what you love in life is worth it. Miyazaki, along with other animators and cartoonists, gave me a type of inspiration that no other artist could truly achieve. These artists brought me back to my passion so for my Artist Tree, I dared to place myself among my actual heroes. 

I love the art of animation, I admire the skill and patience it takes to simply create an animated episode. Animation is an extremely delicate and time consuming artwork but it creates some of the most beautiful works of entertainment. So when I decided to place myself among them in this tree, I sadly realized I knew less names of these wonderful creators than I thought I did. For my tree, I decided to create it in the classic Tree-House style of Winnie the Pooh, one of my favorite Disney animations. This tree is composed of thick branches that taper out thinner and thinner. I decided to write the names of my favorite animators larger and slowly follow the branches with names that either followed them in my animated journey, or followed them in succession of success. 

I placed the names on this tree on two main sides. The left starts out with my absolute favorite, Hayao Miyazaki followed by names of relatively famous animators but still in a niche category. On the right I placed  Disney, followed by the names of other “Disney” branded animators along with some of the classic cartoon-style animators and pioneers of the industry. Towards the bottom of my tree I placed animator James Baxter, a well renowned and incredibly talented animator who has worked on numerous projects that I deeply admire. Finally, and most terrifying, I placed myself right underneath my current role model Rebecca Sugar, the creator of “Steven Universe”. 

Over the years my goals and career choices have fluctuated. When I was a teenager I lost faith in my artwork, and thought that my art would never become as beautiful as those whom I admired. I was frustrated that my art was not as good as the image in my head and would be angry at myself even though I never received any artistic training. When I finally went to college and attempted to be in different fields and corporate worlds I felt isolated and deflated. I had always been working on my art in my free time and slowly realized that if I had to be in a corporation for my entire life, I would be miserable; so I took my life back into my own hands and decided to simply do what I enjoy. One of my biggest goals I have set up for myself is to create my own original story. Something that I can be fully passionate about, and be able to create into a graphic novel with hopes of eventual animation. I would love to be able to find a working environment where I can hone my skills and still feel inspired to work on my own projects.

After some consideration, I realized that I would love to be an art teacher by day, and graphic novelist by night. Being in a teaching environment is exciting to me, I love children and remember how much I enjoyed my art classes, so being able to teach kids to follow their passions, while following my own is exactly something I would be happy doing for the rest of my life. Art is something that everyone should have access too, and being able to teach children how to appreciate and enjoy their own works is something that I needed in my life. I am  a very practical person and I feel happy with the choices and goals I have set out for myself. I know that I still have a long way to go before I am comfortable and happy with my work; but I am excited to see where that work and effort brings me. I have a wonderful imagination and I am ready to work hard to bring those ideas to life through art.