Introduction

You can sometimes find me sitting in a graveyard, enjoying the care and quietness of my surroundings, or other times driving through rural Pennsylvania with my Destiny's Child cd on full volume. I’m an Illustration Sophomore named Kat who spends their free time watching cartoons and picking the perfect old-book-scented candle to light. So far, UArts has increased my level of self-awareness, as I learn that some of my greatest strengths lie in academia, and my greatest weaknesses in casual social gatherings. This summer’s internship is the perfect balance between the two, and is helping improve my person-to-person communication and grace.  

One of my proudest moments from Freshman year was creating a color-based video describing social phobia. Although smearing paint across my face during filming was fun, the most satisfying part to work on was editing and re-editing. I thrive in time consuming, picky work, like checking my friends’ essays for grammar mistakes and color-coding art supplies. The video ended up as a major accomplishment for me, because of my hard work to perfect the color balance and sound.

As an illustrator, I always want my work to live in a specific world, with its own narrative and complex characters. I hope to work in visual development for cartoons and comics, or in storyboarding, with my own drawing and writing projects on the side. My work, although influenced by Edward Gorey and Patrick McHale, often ends up in a more idyllic Ghibli world, with wise forest creatures and time enough to relax in the cool weather. For my Sophomore year, I hope to continue creating art that describes my experience as a Middle Eastern child from a bi-racial home. If by spring semester I can land a spot in the Comic Creation class, my plan is to create a comic interviewing the other Armenian-Americans I know, documenting the various experiences we have had- from being a dual citizen, to the complications of discrimination. 

My internship is with Megan Becker, who participated in Summer Fellows herself when she studied Illustration at UArts. She works for Art Recovery Technologies, an art restoration company in Whippany, NJ. Because the commute from my parents’ home is a few hours, I live with Megan and her partner during the weeks I’m interning. We pack our lunches at 6:30 every morning (5:30 on Fridays) and say goodbye to the cats Soybean and Marmalade, arriving back home around 5pm. The work days are fun, the art restoration is fascinating, and I enjoy every week I spend with Megan.