“I’m from El Salvador. I was born there and raised there until I was 21. I moved here in 2013.
I stopped making things, and I stopped drawing when I moved here. Then I just wanted to study somewhere.
Before moving here, I studied architecture in my country, but I only got one or two years done. When we moved here, I tried to look for something similar to it. I enrolled at the Art Institute in their interior design program. After three years of that, they closed the school because of bankruptcy. Then I enrolled in Goshen College, and whoo! That boosted my art, and I was drawing and painting and doing photography.
I was doing things I didn’t think I would be able to do before. It was exciting.
I’m not really sure what was different [between the two programs]. At the Art Institute, they were nice, but at Goshen College, maybe, they were more personalized.
Starting at Goshen College was [pivotal] in my work as an artist. It seemed like everything started there. I was trying different things, and that made a huge difference.
My senior show is 20 pieces, everything together. Twenty photos. Most of them are abstract photos because I use a lot of multiple exposures and out-of-focus shots. I’m proud of these because they show how much I’ve experimented with photography these couple of years since I started.
I think photography is my favorite, but I want to work with them together – photography and graphic design. And with graphic design, I like how [Goshen College has positioned it as] something that can help the community, too. Most of the time, graphic design is just commercial, but I want to try helping the community with my graphic design, too.
I really enjoy living in Goshen. I love my country, and I miss it, but I love Goshen. When I came here with my whole family, we felt a sense of community that we didn’t find in other places.
I love to go out here and take photos and then post them on my social media so people see how beautiful Goshen is – the sunset, the sunrise, when it’s snowing. I try to capture everything.
I’m a senior right now. I am graduating next Sunday, and then I have an internship with the Soapy Gnome as a graphic designer. After that, I don’t know what will happen.”
