Upbringing of My Artistic World

As a child, I have always gravitated towards a creative mind set; of course, I do not recall all of the things I did, but I do remember some. For instance, when my family went to church in Temple, it was a big church, and I would never sit still. I would constantly ask my mom for something to draw on, so she would hand me a pen and an old receipt from her purse, and I would draw. My mom still has some of the receipts that I had drawn on, and I was around five when I started doing this. I would draw flowers, hearts, dogs, cats, and for some reason, I liked to draw mummies. Ever since then, I would draw on everything; in middle school, I would get in trouble for drawing on my papers instead doing my work. When I became a freshman, I could finally take an art class! I was so excited to improve my passion. I got into art class, and I was not that great. After most of the year went by in class, I started thinking that I was awful and that it was never going to improve. Until the end of the year, our last assignment was to draw our zodiac signs; mine is Leo, so I was expected to draw a lion.  I was approaching this with all of my effort. And what came of it surprised me. Astonished at how well it turned out. From that point on, I knew that I was going to stay in in art and find a career to do that incorporates a creative aspect. In high school , I took art every year, and I have more than two hundred drawings that I have done over the past four years. While in high school, I loved giving my teachers gifts around the Christmas holiday.The gifts I gave them that I am most proud of are some delicious cut out sugar cookies I made from scratch. They were fluffy and so good. I decorated them with some homemade royal icing; they turned out amazing; one of my teachers said they looked too good to eat. I used my art skills to create some beautiful cookies that everyone enjoyed. When I was thinking of me career choice, at first, I wanted to become an animator for Disney or Pixar, then after taking an animation class, I realized that I do not have the patience for that. So then I started to think of photography; at first, I wanted to start my own business, but then I realized that I could fulfill my love for two things at the same time: my love for traveling and photography. So then I started doing some research on how to get into National Geographic magazine as a photographer. One of the requirements is to have a degree in something other than photography, so I decided to study anthropology. My family has always supported me in what I have wanted to pursue, and none of them have been rude or doubtful. Every child makes an impact on their future when they are young, but they just do not know it yet. That is how my creative mindset as a child brought me to my artistic world.  

-Dakota Schneider