Wishful Thinking

   My whole life, I’ve had a plan. I was going to go to college, get my degree in biology, go to veterinary school as soon as I graduated, and make a career out of my love for animals. I still love animals, but switching my major to art was the biggest change I've ever made. My plan was anxiously thrown out the window as I decided I was going to pursue a career in something else I love: painting. 

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   My work is about the personal feelings of anxiety that are tied to figuring out a career path after graduating college. Life never works out how you plan it, and one small event can change everything. The one thing that has never changed is my love for painting. It has always been my main outlet for self expression and stress relief. It allows me to take a deep breath, and that is what is being represented here. It shows time slowing down long enough to take that breath, and reflect on the decisions at hand. This painting is a combination of acrylic paint for the background and oil paint for the girl. The different types of paint are representative of my journey as well. Up until college, I only ever used acrylic paint for its simplicity and practicality for a self learning artist. I used oil paint for the first time in my junior year painting class, and I feel it is the best to represent that transition in my life through my painting. 

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   The animations are representations of my other, more recently found skill: digital art. The animals shown are all my family pets at different moments in time. I always wanted to be a veterinarian for them. Seeing them hurt or sick always drove me to want to be able to fix them myself. Part of the anxiety with switching my plan is the questions racing through my mind: am I letting them down, am I letting little me down, am I doing the right thing?