SELF-AWARENESS TO COLLABORATION
Greg Chaffee
Hi, I'm Greg and I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I grew up in a house with an amazing mom and dad and two brothers whom I always strived to emulate. My family are the most important people in my life and I accredit them with being all that I am. Growing up I was especially involved in anything sports related, quick to identify myself as an athlete. I played every sport that I had access to and spent hours in my backyard mastering my curveball, working on my three-step drop, and hitting jump-shots. My passion for sports was equally shared with my love for art, spending large amounts of time filling sketchbooks and concepting ideas. My mom called me an artist - I called myself an athlete. Getting older, my interest for art lessened as I pushed to be the kid who was good at sports, while watercolor nor clay made their way into my plans. Though I did not sketch as frequently, I still fed my artistic spirit by researching athletic wear: shoes, hats, equipment, gear, and uniforms. All of these things fueled my dreams and desires of being designing sportswear. However, I was too distracted of being who I wanted to be than being myself. How could I become an athletic designer if I had stopped my artistic engagement? As I progressed in high school, I persisted on the same track until around the age of 15 - and things changed. I began to recognize that in order to have output, I needed to have input. I started to think that I had wasted time avoiding the arts, deeming them unimportant - until I realized that I had been growing my artistic abilities the entire time. I came to recognize that my ventures as an athlete were the same of an artist. My emotional demeanor, tenacious attitude, and on field look paralleled an artists finding of their style. I became less comfortable with being someone I was not and more comfortable with being me. I realized that just as a visual or performing artist, I was developing my style and sense of expression.
Today I am a junior studying Art Education at Penn State. I love anything art related and believe athletics to be a part of the category "art." I spend most of my time listening to music, reading, playing sports, and having good conversation with good friends.
Alex Gold
Hi! I'm Alex and I'm from Upper Dublin, Pennsylvania. Like Greg^, I am also extremely close with my family and they are constantly influential motivators in my life. My grandmother and great grandmother are both talented painters that I have looked up to since my childhood. In describing a brief timeline of my experiences with art, I cannot even begin to express the passion that has grown throughout my journey. However, if I had to specifically think back on my earliest art classes, I can recall actually being quite the troublemaker...
Sent to the principal’s office in kindergarten, I had decided to take it upon myself to rip up a classmates’ artwork because they had “colored outside the lines”. My naive mind at the early age of five years old fully comprehended the controlled use of a marker, but clearly had not yet adapted to helping others learn in a meaningful way. Throughout elementary school, I learned that working independently was just as important as my ability to work in groups. Regular classroom subjects like math and science were consistently incorporating group art projects into the curriculum. The information I retained in my major subjects tended to stand out most when working through them artistically.
As I pursued my passion, I enrolled in an afterschool program throughout middle school as well as a Saturday school at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Getting a more intimate experience only furthered my desire to one day have the opportunity to make a difference in a child’s life as many of my teachers had done for me. My role as an art teacher has evolved into understanding the concept of mentorship. My high school art teacher and I became extremely close, and I became aware that the comfortable environment an art classroom has to offer comes with so much responsibility. Not only will I have the chance to inspire my students and help them strengthen their talent, but I also intend to be a role model that they can confide in. I pursued this dream by creating a new art program at a summer camp known as Nock-A-Mixon, and also instructed an afterschool program for Thomas Fitzwater Elementary School.
Each and every one of these experiences are what add up to define my character. I cannot be more excited to pursue a career in art education, as I have been eager to make a difference since the day I had made that decision to rip up my classmates’ paper. As our culture evolves and adapts, so must we. I have come a long way since my first artistic encounters and plan on continuing to develop as a teacher, as a role model, and as a mentor. I will be graduating from Pennsylvania State University with a degree in Art Education and could not be more thrilled to get started in making an impact on future students!
