Omar Gonzalez
AP Language
Mrs. Edwards
“Connect the dots” Essay
15, December 2011

Today, I am an artist sponsored by Roseta Santiago, who is also an artist.It has been quite a journey full of surprises, mistakes, success, and disappointments. I never expected to make it this far, I could only dream of this to happen to me. Now that my dream is a reality, I am just going to live it and hopefully one day, I’ll make it to the top! As a kid in elementary school, I always loved to doodle on my notes and I would enjoy going to art class and making little clay pots and whatnot. I was just always drawing at home, school, and wherever I was. Even though I would draw a lot, I never thought or believed that it would get me somewhere in life, because you would never think of asking a kid what he or she want to be in life and getting the response: “I want to be an artist”. Once I got into middle school, I had this sudden interest in art because I was alright at it and I really didn’t like anything else. Although I liked it so much, I would still never think of telling people my interest in it. I always thought for the longest time that art was just a hobby, that it wouldn’t get me anywhere. As I went through seventh and eighth grade, my passion and interest in art grew even more. Still, I didn’t like art enough to think of it as an occupation because everyone else would always think to be a doctor or lawyer, I was still “exploring” my options. I got the opportunity to take art as a high school credit in the eighth grade, so I took it. I wouldn’t say that was the best “artistic” year for me, but I got through it. Coming into high school as a freshman was a neat experience. That year I took art and I found it a little more challenging than it was in middle school, but I found out that no matter what it was, I could draw it. Mr. Valley, my art teacher caught on quickly to my drawing skills and he started to give me more challenging things to draw. Instead of taking it as a challenge, I took it as an opportunity to refine my drawing techniques and it made me a better artist. Throughout the rest of the year, he introduced the entire class to different mediums of art such as oil and chalk pastels, acrylic paints, and charcoal. I instantly fell in love with the chalk pastels and used them as my primary medium for most of my artwork. I wouldn’t say I was great at using the chalk pastels, but I was above many other students that would use the same medium. Freshman year is the year that I made my decision that I wanted to become an artist. This was just the beginning of my journey. Sophomore year, I must say, was way better than freshman year not only in art class but everything else was great too. In art class, Mr. Valley had lots of confidence and trust in me and I was able to do more in the art room. I had started on this big creative project and I never planned for it to be so big. The project took me all year long to finish and with Mr. Valley pushing me on it, giving up on it was no choice. Of course I had to use my favorite medium, pastel, on it. It was the last week before Christmas break and I was just frustrated because I thought it was good enough, but again Mr. Valley was right there telling me to keep going and to make it more “powerful”. I never quite understood what he meant by that, but through this project I figured out the meaning of what real “powerful” art looks like. Using many techniques and constantly layering colors on top of colors with a little bit of creativity and playing around with the pastels, is what made the finished product unique from everything else. It also made it my art that no one else on this world had ever created. Come the last week of my tenth grade year, I literally had nothing left to do, so Mr. Valley decided to let me enter a contest at the Lakeshore Mall. It was the “Design a barricade” contest and the winners would get a hundred dollars. Naturally I said yes to Mr. Valley and he told me to do the carousel in a pastel drawing. Only having a week to do something for a contest was very over whelming, but I put all the effort I could into it and come Friday, I had successfully finished. A week later, all the students that had entered went to the Lakeshore Mall for the reception. I was the last to arrive and right away they knew I had drew the carousel and one of the mall workers said that it was every one’s favorite artwork there. I was excited that they liked it so much because I only had a weeks worth of work on it. They gave me the one hundred dollars, and now the carousel I drew is displayed big at the mall and every time I pass by it, I get this big smile of satisfaction on my face because I can actually say that I drew that! The whole thing of being able to draw something in a week and having people appreciate it was just great overall and it’s an unforgettable experience. My current year as sadly, a second year sophomore, has had its ups and downs, but as always, Mr. Valley is always there to support me in any way he can. One morning he came to me asking if I wanted to be involved in the Governor’s Honors program which is the opportunity of going to Valdosta State University over the summer for a month and doing college level work in your field of interest. I had gladly accepted but sadly, I had to let go of it because the counselor said being a second year sophomore would not look good on my application for Governor’s Honors and it was best that I focus on school more. After hearing the bad news, I was feeling down just as anyone would be. I honestly thought that my grades would get in the way of me becoming an artist, so I was starting to have second thoughts about doing art when I grow up. However, opportunities come and go and Mr. Valley told me to go to the Quinlan Arts Center one afternoon because colleges were going to be present looking over many students’ artwork. I thought to myself, what do I have to lose, so I went and when I showed up, I felt left out. All the other students were white and had very presentable portfolios of their artwork. I was the only Hispanic there and all I had was three pieces of art. However, I still went around and showed what I had. Piedmont State along with Gainesville State showed interest in me and I gained interest in both schools as well. The Savannah College of Art and Design was also there and it’s the college which I wanted to get into. They showed no interest in me, but on the bright side, I found two other options. Lastly, there were two professional artists there also looking at the student’s artwork as well. Everyone had left and I was the only one left, I never thought that staying the extra hour would change my life. Roseta Santiago was one of the artists present and she became very fond of me and loved my artwork. One of my pieces of art happened to be my tenth grade pastel project. She liked the way I drew it and began talking to me about her life as an artist. After we got done conversing, she told me to become a member at Quinlan and other galleries so I can submit my artwork somewhere and begin to get noticed. After telling me that, she went back to the reception desk and came back and gave me the surprise of sponsoring me for a year so I can enter in the art exhibitions that they have annually. This was a big surprise for me and just as we were all leaving, she had one last gift for me, her book with all of her beginning works of art. I ended up leaving as giddy as a school girl, and speechless. A month later Roseta sent me a set of Rembrandt pastels so that I can begin doing my artwork at home, that set of pastels has got to be the best gift I’ve received because those pastels will be used for my future works of art. So far, this year I’ve been put down and brought back up, but I’ve still got a whole future ahead of me and hopefully, I’ll make to where I want to be.