LaceyLipis
December 17th, 2008, 04:20 PM
I am currently applying art school in Chicago. I have had my portfolio approved but I am having problems with my Statement of Purpose. I am not in school, so I don't have the resources for educated help on this matter. Maybe anyone could contribute some advice.
They have two descriptions of what it should include. First there is :"The statement of purpose is a personal essay that provides insight into your specific reasons for applying to SAIC. In the statement of purpose, you should discuss your interests, creative influences, educational goals, and anything else that is important for us to know regarding your interest in art, design, and visual culture. Through your statement of purpose the Undergraduate Committee on Admissions is interested in finding out more about you as an individual and how you represent yourself in a written format."
Second: "Your statement of purpose helps us find out more about your personal vision; Please tell us what your work is about."
I have a super rough draft. It's mainly bullet notes. Here goes:
Growing up, I always excelled in the art portion of school. I was lucky enough to have family friends who were willing to coach me in regards to technical skill. At the age of 13, I came to the conclusion that this is something that I want to pursue in it's entirety. I started a strict schedule of practice on my own accord. Upon entering high school, I started my first official art class. From there, I was entered in county and state competitions and won several awards. In my later high school years, I was allowed to take independent study classes with the head of the art department. Unfortunately, after a year of being emancipated, I withdrew from school to increase my finances.
I completed my GED and started community college, enrolling in art classes and other classes that concentrated on concepts that I believed were important to me as a person and as an artist: i.e. eastern philosophy, religion, and cultural anthropology.
My first college art class was difficult for me: I had been focusing of clean lines and technical skill. My teacher pushed me towards more conceptual pieces. I took a few years to break my habits and become more acquainted with alternative media.
Now, I attempt to use a spectrum of tools and knowledge to fully communicate my piece: surface, texture, color, size.
At the age of 21, I dropped everything, including my schooling, and left to Thailand and India. There was an absence of familiarity.
Faces are the serial number of the human specimen: people were written in another language completely. I became semi-fluent in the language of the body, and faces have lost most of their traditional meaning to me.
Alternative portraiture is what I am experimenting with the most. Identity is such an allusive concept; trying to capture someone's personality/essence has become a personal mission and has me constantly questioning what identity is. For the most part, I have tended to reject facial structure and features because I don't think it properly conveys a person. I feel that a person's body and body language is more definitive of who they truly are. In addition, I realize that it is through my eye and there is a heavy amount of distorted perception and projection. In turn, this explores my relationship with my subject and matters that concern my subject.
Interests:
-I am applying with a portfolio that is all painting and drawing, however I focus a lot on texture and building surfaces. My resources are limited but I am heavily interested in generating more 3D surfaces like metal and resin. In addition, I would love to incorporate light into my works.
Creative influences:
Milan Kundera- Kundera is more concerned with the words that shape or mould his characters than with the characters' physical appearance. He says that the reader's imagination automatically completes the writer's vision. He, as the writer, wishes to focus on the essential. For him the essential does not include the physical appearance or even the interior world
Francis Bacon- His technique is sinister and harsh. His use of color and distorted subject matter incites a instinctive knee-jerk reaction. I wish to identify with him in the way that he describes identifying with Picasso, " Picasso was the first person to produce figurative paintings which overturned the rules of appearance; he suggested appearance without using the usual codes, without respecting the representational truth of form, but using a breath of irrationality instead, to make representation stronger and more direct; so that form could pass directly from the eye to the stomach without going through the brain."
Odd Nerdrum- His use of body posture is essential to his work. Corpses, people in pain, people dying, blatant and uncomfortable sexuality are juxtaposed with his delicate and beautiful technique.
Why art?:
-Communication is an essential part of any living creature.
- While I am most influenced by the written word, I find it limiting. Ideas are lost in translation. I understand that being an American, we have developed our own visual culture and semiotic system that is only indigenous to us. I do believe that there is a way to transcend those pre-established systems and communicate on a more basic visceral level: I want to create my own visual language.
---- I've visited several of your SAIC days, and I recall being told that I should not lose my voice in this letter. I racked my brain trying to present myself in a well composed format, throwing in jargon that exhibits my minor knowledge of visual communication and I've done a decent job. Bare bones: for a long time there has been a need for me to create, an urge that I have no choice but to indulge. I enjoy the inner workings of my head and want to give them to others to interpret how they see fit. I don't have a vat of resin, raw metal, or Davinic's sketch books: you do. I can't even fathom what I would do with it, but I am eager to have those tools at my fingertips. All I want is to give you my money so I can have the opportunity to emerse myself in, what I deem to be, the best visual arts program in the country.
-See you in September.
They have two descriptions of what it should include. First there is :"The statement of purpose is a personal essay that provides insight into your specific reasons for applying to SAIC. In the statement of purpose, you should discuss your interests, creative influences, educational goals, and anything else that is important for us to know regarding your interest in art, design, and visual culture. Through your statement of purpose the Undergraduate Committee on Admissions is interested in finding out more about you as an individual and how you represent yourself in a written format."
Second: "Your statement of purpose helps us find out more about your personal vision; Please tell us what your work is about."
I have a super rough draft. It's mainly bullet notes. Here goes:
Growing up, I always excelled in the art portion of school. I was lucky enough to have family friends who were willing to coach me in regards to technical skill. At the age of 13, I came to the conclusion that this is something that I want to pursue in it's entirety. I started a strict schedule of practice on my own accord. Upon entering high school, I started my first official art class. From there, I was entered in county and state competitions and won several awards. In my later high school years, I was allowed to take independent study classes with the head of the art department. Unfortunately, after a year of being emancipated, I withdrew from school to increase my finances.
I completed my GED and started community college, enrolling in art classes and other classes that concentrated on concepts that I believed were important to me as a person and as an artist: i.e. eastern philosophy, religion, and cultural anthropology.
My first college art class was difficult for me: I had been focusing of clean lines and technical skill. My teacher pushed me towards more conceptual pieces. I took a few years to break my habits and become more acquainted with alternative media.
Now, I attempt to use a spectrum of tools and knowledge to fully communicate my piece: surface, texture, color, size.
At the age of 21, I dropped everything, including my schooling, and left to Thailand and India. There was an absence of familiarity.
Faces are the serial number of the human specimen: people were written in another language completely. I became semi-fluent in the language of the body, and faces have lost most of their traditional meaning to me.
Alternative portraiture is what I am experimenting with the most. Identity is such an allusive concept; trying to capture someone's personality/essence has become a personal mission and has me constantly questioning what identity is. For the most part, I have tended to reject facial structure and features because I don't think it properly conveys a person. I feel that a person's body and body language is more definitive of who they truly are. In addition, I realize that it is through my eye and there is a heavy amount of distorted perception and projection. In turn, this explores my relationship with my subject and matters that concern my subject.
Interests:
-I am applying with a portfolio that is all painting and drawing, however I focus a lot on texture and building surfaces. My resources are limited but I am heavily interested in generating more 3D surfaces like metal and resin. In addition, I would love to incorporate light into my works.
Creative influences:
Milan Kundera- Kundera is more concerned with the words that shape or mould his characters than with the characters' physical appearance. He says that the reader's imagination automatically completes the writer's vision. He, as the writer, wishes to focus on the essential. For him the essential does not include the physical appearance or even the interior world
Francis Bacon- His technique is sinister and harsh. His use of color and distorted subject matter incites a instinctive knee-jerk reaction. I wish to identify with him in the way that he describes identifying with Picasso, " Picasso was the first person to produce figurative paintings which overturned the rules of appearance; he suggested appearance without using the usual codes, without respecting the representational truth of form, but using a breath of irrationality instead, to make representation stronger and more direct; so that form could pass directly from the eye to the stomach without going through the brain."
Odd Nerdrum- His use of body posture is essential to his work. Corpses, people in pain, people dying, blatant and uncomfortable sexuality are juxtaposed with his delicate and beautiful technique.
Why art?:
-Communication is an essential part of any living creature.
- While I am most influenced by the written word, I find it limiting. Ideas are lost in translation. I understand that being an American, we have developed our own visual culture and semiotic system that is only indigenous to us. I do believe that there is a way to transcend those pre-established systems and communicate on a more basic visceral level: I want to create my own visual language.
---- I've visited several of your SAIC days, and I recall being told that I should not lose my voice in this letter. I racked my brain trying to present myself in a well composed format, throwing in jargon that exhibits my minor knowledge of visual communication and I've done a decent job. Bare bones: for a long time there has been a need for me to create, an urge that I have no choice but to indulge. I enjoy the inner workings of my head and want to give them to others to interpret how they see fit. I don't have a vat of resin, raw metal, or Davinic's sketch books: you do. I can't even fathom what I would do with it, but I am eager to have those tools at my fingertips. All I want is to give you my money so I can have the opportunity to emerse myself in, what I deem to be, the best visual arts program in the country.
-See you in September.