Madeline Hibbert BFA Scholarship Application

A lot of my current art consists of class projects and personnel study that I've done over the past year or so. My "anticipated evolution" however, and not just for the coming semester, but probably for the rest of my life, is to someday be able to say there isn't a thing I can't do. It's a bit of an ironic conundrum considering graphic design and other skills associated with it are an ever evolving medium, but that is perhaps why I love it so much. It's constantly changing, constantly challenging, and in my book that adds up to being constantly satisfying. 

There's always the possibility of frustration at first, but after you dig through it, there's a great feeling of reward involved. Like when I was first trying to learn Photoshop and Illustrator, I constantly felt hindered because I wasn't familiar with the tools. But after a while, it becomes second nature, and that's where the real fun kicks in because finally the creative juices can flow. I live for the world of visual communication. I love the magic of seeing a project come together, to watch life get breathed into it from the first inklings of an idea and transform from there. 

I use a wide variety of medias to best express the wide variety of ideas playing at my fingertips, though I tend to hunger after the graphic design and illustration kind. Anything and everything, from drawing, painting, illustrating, typography, photography, art history; I crave to be the ever better jack of all trades in design that I can be. I never liked leaving things out, and I hope to learn evermore next semester with such classes as printmaking, experimental typography, and graphic design, and add that knowledge to my repertoire. I still have a long way to go- I know that, and I like that. There will always be more tools and tricks to learn, as well as art styles, and I truly hope to build my skills and be a great professional. 

400 Word Essay

An amazing exhibit I recently visited was at the Shepard Union Art Gallery with Judy Elsley's Breast Cancer Quilts. 

There was a clear hierarchy in the presentation of the cancer quilt exhibit from the entrance to the back, but what struck me most importantly was that this exhibit wasn’t just art made out of quilts, this art was truly someone’s life represented through quilts, a powerful display utilizing the “verbal with the visual.”

The entrance showcased What The Body Knew quilts, segments created by Elsley back before she even knew she had cancer, signifying perfectly what her body knew before her she did. The set up also paralleled perfectly for me as a viewer as I entered the gallery, looking at the quilts trying to figure out the meanings. The quilts looked like cells, and cells going awry (like cancer). After continuing on, I discovered, as she must have, all the confusion was actually the scary discovery of breast cancer.

In the back gallery, I finally discovered the voice behind the quilts. She was an English teacher, and her name was Dr. Judy Elsleys, and that she loved to put the visual with the verbal, one of my favorite things too, which is why it made so much sense to see the visualness of the quilts combined with the words. 

All of her pieces dealt with her journey through cancer. She displayed a lot of positivity in her quilts, like what becoming healthy again meant, facing her fears and labeling them, and gratitude for the people supporting her. There was also a nice dichotomy with the quilt that had things she’d miss if she died and instead she turned them into things she loved about life. And her One Day At a Time quilt, that when you’re at a dark point in your life, it’s hard to imagine very much of the future. So instead, all you can do is focus on one day at a time, hence her Daily prayer quilt quote, “Gratefully and expectantly, I ask for one day’s portion of grace.” 

I took a lot away from that exhibit thanks to Judy Elsley and I’m glad I saw it. It was powerful seeing the verbal used with the visual with such a personal story, and as a graphic designer who uses the verbal with the visual too, the experience was something I will keep in mind.