Stating my Purpose... kind of...

I’m going to try a little experiment. I’m on my third draft of this Statement of Purpose, possibly the most difficult thing in my application to SCAD, and have yet to produce something that would impress my proof-readers. If anything, I’ve already pissed one of them off by the second draft. The biggest critique I’ve gotten for the previous draft is that it lacks any kind of passion and emotion. It states my goals and ambitions, but there’s no passion.

The problem for me, I think, is my frame of mind. My visual arts training has conditioned me to look at a blank Word document as something to state concepts and facts as concisely as possible. It’s similar to how I view a blank canvas with both fear and excitement at the possibilities of what the end product will be. Both situations call for a different frame of mind for me to write or draw or anything. So what do I need to stare at in order to talk, let alone write, about something back by emotion? Simple answer.

So here I am, staring at my old blog’s Add a New Entry screen. Not a lot has changed as far as layout goes, which helps get me into the proper frame of mind. And the reason I’m even here is to just try rewriting this sucker in a different frame of mind. Something that isn’t so formal and methodic. Something that feels honest when read, because, let’s face it, the second draft felt like a big lie to me when I read it. Besides, it’s easier to edit than it is to write. (Or so I’m told.)

Now that that’s out of the way, on with the show!

Like I said before, I have a degree in the visual arts. I’ve had this degree for almost three years now, and the most it has given me in the form of knowledge and appreciation of artistic design choices. Why is that area of the image black? What am I suppose to be looking at and what is actually catching my attention? This means something different given the context in which I find this object in, doesn’t it? Questions like these flood my mind when I view anything now, even something as mindless as an action scene on a TV show. But answering these questions in any form of communication, oral or literal, has been less than satisfying to me. Furthermore, I haven’t produced any images that actually is in line with my formal training. Oh, sure, I’ve done my fair share of doodles, bought myself a table for my Mac so I can draw a little bit more naturally in Photoshop, even got a pair of drawing mannequins for Christmas to help with my anatomy and poses. But the works that came out of it are hardly art in my opinion. Why is that?

I recently learned that the artistic method is one that, while I appreciate its complexity, compromises a great deal of fun out of what I get out of the visual arts. Sitting down and forcing myself to produce anything, even a minor character design, results in over-analytical critiquing and a strive for that impossible perfection of execution. This upsets me greatly. Creating art was fun. It’s suppose to be fun. When did it became so frustrating? Why did it become so frustrating? How can I make it not be so frustrating? The answer was simple. Keep it casual. Being an artist in the gallery sense of the word was never a career I desired. It was something I thought I wanted because I want to create things, whatever those things may be.

I still want to create things. I like creating things and then being rewarded for those creations, even if the reward is nothing but a smile because what I created was aesthetically pleasing at the very base level. There aren’t as many avenues where this kind of set up is common place, and with one of them already out of the question, I had to focus my attention to another career with the same kind of rewarding experience.

This is where video games come in. I tend to play games that reward a player’s creativity, such as the tycoon series of games, be they roller coasters or zoo in nature. God games like The Sims 3 and Spore rank highest in that particular genre as far as games that reward my creativity due to their online community integration. I can find out what works, what doesn’t work, and what people find appealing with each new creation I make. And strangely enough, that’s not how you are suppose to play the game by design. These games offer tools that are elements of the game play, yet there are entire communities dedicated to using and mastering these tools instead of actually completing the game.

That’s all I really want. I want to create things, master the creation process and tools used in the process of creating those things, and see the results of that creativity in the form of feedback. You can see why I originally went with the gallery artist route in my undergrad. It was a very broad umbrella that opened the door to a lot of possibilities. And with the world moving into the digital age, all my creations have been geared towards those media. Everyday, new forms of technology keep coming out of movie studios and engineering labs commissioned by one company or another. Real-time rendering systems for motion-capture footage. Full-range video capturing cameras capable of recording a 360-degree image. Augmented reality games on your smart phone. From each of these products come spring a wealth of new creative content that my mind continues to dream about. Content that I want to create but lack the skills to do so. So where do I acquire these skills?

SCAD is one of the few institutions in the country that specialize in this kind of subject, and is also one of the most recognizable. But that isn’t why I picked it. Go back to what I just wrote and point out where I say anything about wanting to be famous for creating content. My views on fame and fortune can be easily defined with a simple phrase: I don’t care about them. No, what makes SCAD the best candidate to me is its setting. Savannah is a very simple city with very little distractions. It’s beautiful in its simplicity. And out of that can spring a wealth of beautiful ideas and concept created by a community that clearly cares about its members and tries their best to support everyone willing to contribute to its growth and magic. It’s an ideal setting that I did not think existed until I visited the city myself. It’s definitely something I cannot find duplicated anywhere else in the country. And it’s something I want to be a part of.