At the outset of my college career, I came to the University of Alabama in Huntsville with the intention of being a mechanical engineer.  Growing up, I was always interested in art, but I’ve always also been very technically minded.  This technical disposition, along with my preconceived notion that all engineering was exactly like what you saw on MythBusters, made engineering feel like the perfect fit for an undergraduate degree.  When I arrived here and began moving through courses, however, I quickly came to realize my big mistake and the irony which lay therein: the creators of MythBusters were both, like me, technically minded artists, and following my artistic passions would suit me much better.  Thankfully, the University of Alabama in Huntsville has an excellent animation program and a top-notch sculpture program to match, so at the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year, when I decided to jump ship from engineering to Fine Arts I found myself in good hands.

     Almost immediately following my change of course I found what I had initially been searching for: in digital animation for its technical bearing and narrative nature, and sculpture for its hands-on expressiveness and problem solving.  As my semesters progressed I soon came to find a new love for storytelling as well.  I found sculpture, like animation, was an excellent medium for this.  While animation was exemplary for its narrative nature and expressiveness, sculpture surprised me with its more subtle approach; in each sculptural piece, the knowledge that it was created deliberately and intentionally lends intrigue to its surface and form far beyond any everyday object.  To consider a sculpture is to consider its material, tool marks (or lack thereof), joinery, and more.  Sculpture as a discipline is a form of visual problem solving, and for the viewer, part of exploring that work is taking that piece apart with their eyes to see how it was created.  My ambition as an artist - something that I’ve only just begun to explore - is to fully realize the depth of artistic opportunity present in the overlap between these two mediums. I aim to push the boundaries of fluidity in sculpture, crafting pieces which feel rife with movement even when stationary, and to also revolutionize fine-arts stop motion animations through the use of sculptural techniques and innovative fabrication methods; to give breath-filled, animated life to sculptures, as well as create animations in which the processes of creation and functioning of each animated object feel as full of life and as worthy of exploration as does the final animation itself.