BFA Application Essay - Visual Communication Emphasis

BFA Application Essay

Seth Pace

Visual Communication Emphasis

I have recently been reading “Outliers” by Malclom Gladwell. In his book he talks about stories of real success and how those people created their own success. The one thing that stuck out to me the most was that the truly successful people typically spend a minimum of 10,000 hours in that choice of career before they would really become the success they are known for. Since reading that, I have spent a lot more time creating. I have grown to enjoy creating art in my spare time, which adds to that time necessary for success. I spend a lot of time looking around me. I have found inspiration in the strangest of places, food stains on clothes, or books, texture of painted walls or ceilings, and even just wordplay of everyday life. The more time I have spent looking at my surroundings, the more inspiration I have received, thus having more desire to create the art that those ideas require.

I couldn’t ever say that I was great, or even good at drawing, and so I had to find a way to communicate my messages in a different way. More recently than any other time, I have used a lot of abstract ideas and images, as well as iconography. I feel like being able to communicate using abstract ideas and iconography has the ability to communicate just as well as using realistic art.

I enjoy play on words or puns, as well as absurd, odd kinds of ideas. My favorite thing to do with my work, if possible, is to bring humor into the piece I am working on. I believe humor to be a great icebreaker for communication. I also believe that humor speaks all languages, because laughter is the same in all languages, even if you may have to change the language used to obtain such laughter. I find humor in many things that others do not. I do what I can to push that in my work. I have slowly been learning to push it even more as I’ve really been learning about my own personal style. I look forward to pushing my own style a little more and really making it my own as I continue my study at Weber State and hope to continue it even more when I am accepted into the BFA program.