3rd Good Experience

Getting Voted “Most Artistic” in High School

I never thought I was very artsy when I was young. I knew I loved to color. I always loved to color. I have won at least 11 coloring contests. Mostly I won gift certificates to Old Town Station restaurant, and one time I won one for Home Depot. Coloring was fun. I also built my own doll house as a child, but being artsy was never something I thought I was. That is, until high school, when I won “most artistic” in the senior class.

It all started when I started taking Art as an elective. I took a semester of art one, and I realized I loved doing pieces. We had different assignments, and for some reason, when we would critique completed ones as a class, people would say they liked mine. Eventually I started taking art two, and then I got into senior art, because she let me skip a semester. My art teacher, Mrs. Tranch, liked me a lot, and sometimes I would spend entire lunch periods and study halls in the art room finishing assignments that needed to be done, doing multiple pieces of assignments that were assigned, or doing art that was not even assigned at all as extra work. I would help her clean and organize, and it was fun.

My favorite thing to do, though, was paint acrylic on canvas. I loved that, and I felt I really knew how to work a paint brush. I did other things like sketching, batik, colored pencil, chalk, and collages, but acrylic on canvas was my favorite. My teacher entered several of my pieces to be displayed at the Central Washington State Fair. She also recommended me for an internship at our local arts gallery, the Allied Arts Center of Yakima. I applied, and got the position! I worked there for 5 months during my senior year on top of doing senior class student council and cheer. I worked as an office and gallery assistant. It was there that I got my first graphic design job, designing the official gallery post card for one of the local charity galleries! That made me feel good. At one of those same galleries, I got to enter one of my canvases into the gallery. It didn’t win, but it was good being in the official student gallery art show book. I still have a copy on my bookshelf.

When I was a senior, we voted on Senior Bests, and the class voted me Most Artistic and Best Smile. It was really touching being in the yearbook for something like that.

I see my art teacher now and again. She has a piece or two of mine at the school still that she uses for examples for assignments that I let her keep. She even gave us a wedding present – it was our invitation with a beautiful intricate drawing on top and framed. It sits on our dresser now. In addition, I don’t know what would be hanging on our apartment walls. I miss her sometimes, but I will always attribute my successes to her.

Grown up, art has really helped me; it’s gotten me to where I am today. I even took a few painting classes in college here, and added several of my best canvases to my collection. I am now going into the field of graphic design, and majoring in communication in media studies, and I hope to use visual communication and media ministry at church in my career, since I plan on working in ministry with my husband for the rest of our lives. People say that we are a good team – doing ministry and applying graphic design and visual communication. I started my own graphic design business, and have done several weddings and businesses’ print material. Without taking Art in high school, I don’t think I would be doing what I’m doing today and even taking this class in Communication.

Yearbook Page

My first graphic design job.

Sketched Xmas Card