Adam Smith BFA - Essay

Adam Smith
3D Design Emphasis

                I have been increasingly concerned about the suburbanization of the population at large.

                I am Adam Smith. I have a simple name and a typical face. Until recently, I was in school for Design Graphics Engineering Technologies and I was a mediocre student. I always had a talent for drawing as I was growing up, but never thought of using art as a practical skill.

                 Somehow, I married a beautiful woman who believes in me. Our dreams mixed with my realization that I didn't have any aspirations in school, helped me to change majors toward a passion rather than a paycheck. I have been successful with pumpkin carving to a small degree. That opened my eyes to possibilites that I didn't even know existed. Because of the success I have had with pumpkin carving, I realized that if I want to do something, even as silly as pumpkin carving, I can and I can be successful at it.

                I realize that I am going to die one day and at the rate I was going, I wasn't going to have a legacy that was worth a damn. I want to be remembered; and I want a better quality of life.

                It was as though I was Guy Montag in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I was a fireman going about my daily life when suddenly - everything had changed. I am no longer satisfied with the status quo. I am upset at the degree of mediocrity and greed that it accepted by most people. The lack of curiosity and creativity astounds me. 

                Fine Art is a relatively new concept to me. I had no meaning in my work. My craft had no cognitive thought to it. It was hollow ideas of how to make something look "cool." Now, I am much more interested in learning and observing why things do the things they do. Allowing for consequence to be part of the art. I want my art to be a product of who I am and where I come from. My art will be a consequence of my upbringing, the choices that I have made, the events that have happened in my life and my interactions with my environment.  

                In one of my most recent pieces, I collaborated with Chandler Dee to produce almost 300 small concrete houses. These houses stood in protest to all that I had been so comfortable with for so long. The drab, unfulfilling monotony of suburbia. My hope with that piece was to get people to realize that there are more beautiful things in life than four ugly walls that are identical to your neighbors'. This world has endless possibilities and it is my role to not let them be squandered any more.

                If I am accepted into the Fine Art program, It will be an honor to explore Art of the human experience with my peers and mentors. It is my hope to understand Nature in ways I never imagined and find ways to convey that understanding to an audience through my Art.

Thank you,

-Adam Smith