Blog 2: Why did you choose this career?

Hello everyone! So today we have to talk about our life choices, right? Or more specifically, why do we choose this career? So let's start!

Currently I'm studying Studio Art at the University of Chile, but how did I end up here?

It all started since I was a very young kid. My mom always reminds me about how while I was still in the baby walker, I used to draw with crayons the walls and under the table. Even today, when we see under it, there are some childish doodles in red crayon haha.

I really liked to draw when I was young when I was 6 and attended to kindergarten, I used to draw little stories about bunnies, and pineapples (for some reason I used to think pineapples came from palm trees??), and I would describe the story to my mom, so she could write above the drawings the narration because I couldn't even write my name at that age.

(maybe I thought that because my neighbor had a palm tree like that one in the photo)

I loved to copy drawings from my textbooks and illustrations in the newspaper, my father always was very creative too, he drew a lot, and carve little sculpture sticks with a knife. So he taught me to trace drawings on the window when I was young, then later I could copy drawings just by watching them, even on the tv, so that was how I learned to draw some things.

Especially girls, watching Winx, and cute animalish creatures, watching Pokemon, Digimon, Inuyasha, and old Japanese animations of that time in Chilevision (those golden times, right? or am I dating myself ? D:)

But even if I liked to draw since young, and growing up when I developed my own way of drawing, I always kind of knew it was difficult to live the life of an artist, I don't really know why, but I didn't want to be an artist, I wanted to be a teacher, because I liked teaching, especially "language and communication".

But in high school I really started to think that in my future I didn't want to end in an office doing an awful job I wouldn't enjoy. So I started to seek some options to have a stable life by drawing or designing.





So for all the four years of high school I told people I would study graphic design, since sounded more stable or I don't know, more accepted than arts. I also thought of the idea of being a history teacher, or an art teacher, a publicist, a psychologist even, I was lost xD

But in the last year, my dear art teacher from my school, that was very sweet and supportive to me, gave me the bravery to attempt to study art, because the graphic design had a lot of business and finance related in their study plans, and I didn't like that.





Also the good thing about arts, is that I could embrace all the things I like in just one career, and I learned that very fast in the first year. I get to study history,  philosophy, psychoanalysis, design, even a little of physics and chemistry in some workshops of photography and acid etching lessons.

I was so happy with my final election, even if I had passed for some vocational crisis, and existential ones too, I always come back at the conclusion that this has been one of the best decisions since it let me know a lot of new people, interesting techniques, places of Santiago I didn't know, new forms of art, and a lot of new perspectives of life.

Taller 99 (Engraving workshop -xylography, lithography, drypoint, etc- in Santiago)

Now I'm finishing my last year of career, the health crisis has complicated a lot of things, but also made it better in some ways like I was a little afraid of taking this course because it ends kind of late and it takes me 1-2 hours to get home, so I would be arriving very late to my house in the winter months, but with this model, I can enjoy and learn in my classes at my house, with my family, and safe at nights :)

The sad thing is that in quarantine I haven't been able to work in my favorite thing, that is attend to illustration and geeky fairs to meet with people and sell art. I always go with my artist and graphic designer friend Tamara from Quilpue, we met at Santiago every month, but now I can't.

(Some photos and drawing I did recently for my friends)

I really wish I can make entrepreneurship with these drawings, and my dream job right now is to be a cartoonist, or a comic creator and share my stories with the public and gain money from that!

I don't lose hope! When this quarantine is over, I plan to be more active and progress with my dream job step by step. Wish me luck! ;)

(I wrote a lot, sorry hope I didn't bore you)