Katlin Strzelecki

                When I was applying to Columbia, the main concern I had about being accepted was not only my graduating GPA from high school (which was 1.78) but also my essay. I finally figured it out after visiting the SAIC Museum. As I had gone through the different exhibits inside of the museum, I was seeing pieces of art work that were hundreds of years old. These were pieces of history frozen in time, put on display and valued at unimaginable amounts of money. I was in awe seeing the paintings and photographs of artists whose work I have admired my whole life. All I could think the entire time was “I wonder if these artists had known then how much we value their art work now, if their art would have turned out differently?”

                One of the reasons I’d probably never want to become a professional painter, is because I’m so thorough and critical with my own paintings. I always feel like something is missing, something could be better or that it’s just been a waste altogether. Because of this I will spend huge amounts of time over several months perfecting and tweaking at the painting until finally I give up and move on. It makes me wonder if the amazing artists who are deceased and their paintings hanging in museums now went through the same struggles with their art.          

                After getting back from my trip to Chicago, some of my friends wanted to take me to do a shoot with them in Detroit. We went to one of the hundreds of abandoned buildings and found our way up to a higher floor with an amazing view. The view wasn’t of the city though; it was the inside of the vacant buildings walls. There were countless murals covering the hollow buildings concrete. From the outside you would never say that this was any kind of place for artwork, but in its own way it was the most fascinating museum I’d ever see. Not because the paintings were valued at ridiculous amounts or because of what historical fact was written on the non-existent plaque next to it, but because the room echoed the passion of these unrecognized artists more than any exhibit I’ve ever been to has.

                That was the moment I realized that I needed to take photos for my life to ever be fulfilled. I needed the chance for people to see the world I did. And it didn’t matter to me anymore how much profit my future held for me in dollar signs. Standing in that lonely Detroit hobo-hotel I realized that the true artists in life were not the ones who paid for huge studio spaces to sell their art work at expensive gallery shows. I realized that it was the people who would spend their time painting with cheap spray paint in abandoned buildings in one of the worst cities in America, where no one would ever see it. They didn’t leave a biography or a business card, they only left their art; hoping that someone would see it, like I did, and feel the things they felt and appreciate their art work, even if it was unrecognized.

                I truly believe the best example is graffiti artists. These are people who are going to spend huge amounts of time and their own money on pieces of art work that they know will probably just be covered over the next day.  This doesn’t drive them to go out and tell people either, it drives them to go out and make an even more incredible piece the next day. Banksy is my biggest inspiration as an artist, not because I’m a graffiti artist or am striving to be one, but because he holds the true concept of being an artist so close that it has completely embodied and defined him. And that makes his art better than priceless, because it is free.