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Hi, my name is Janis Appleton. I am 20 years old and have dedicated the last year and a half of my life to becoming the greatest artist I can be.
I was born and raised in LA by divorced parents who dedicated most of their lives to the arts. I grew up failing at everything. Teachers, peers, and my parents described me as spending more time in my head than in the real world. Have you ever watched an AYSO game and seen a kid spinning in circles, picking flowers, without a care in the world? That was me.
In middle and high school, my parents would get called in to talk with teachers every few weeks about my lack of engagement. I wanted to do well in school, and I think I was more than capable with the right support. But no matter what I tried, I just couldn’t ever perform. The world I would escape to in my head would always be a more powerful draw than school sports or sometimes friends.
After high school, things became complicated.I found myself quickly running out of options after failing out of trade school. Hoping a change in scenery would help me find the energy to build a future for myself, I moved to Oregon with my best friend from high school and enrolled in the local community college.
With no goals in mind and no clue what classes I wanted to take, I enrolled in a sculpture class, fondly remembering running around the studio “helping” my dad with a series of public art projects in the early 2000s.
This class changed my life. Energized by my professor, Lee Imonen, whose background was also in public artwork. I experienced something I'd never felt before. I felt like I had found a place where being myself was an advantage. I quickly became obsessed with the art, aided by insights about an artist's life and career path by my art history professor, Danial Batalier, a world-class professor and scholar. Feeling like I had found a place that I loved and that loved me, I tried harder and became more engaged than I ever had in my entire life, always motivated by the knowledge that the next great Idea could be just around the corner.
This new environment felt challenging in all the ways I needed, asking me to bring things from the internal world of ideas and concepts into the real world whilst also quenching my thirst for mechanical and metaphysical understanding of the world around me. This was the beginning of my wholehearted dedication to the arts, and a year later, I'm even more driven and enthralled than I was when I first started.
I now see a full and gratifying future ahead of me in the arts as I am currently applying to Art Schools hoping to take the step to the next level. Watching myself develop artistically, intellectually, and in everyday life as a result of this passion has been a gift and a privilege that I am grateful for every day, but what has meant most to me is the dream that I now live for. I will become the greatest artist I can and will write the story of myself and the world I come from.