Katie Artist Assist

I grew up in an oil town in the deserts of West Texas - a town that experienced crime waves with economic booms. It’s a place that bends to the vicious cyclical nature of commodity and crash, where more money means more pregnant kids, more violence, more backhanded opportunities and the strain on already fragile relationships between people of different races and genders. At 15 I became a foreign exchange student in Ghana, further complicating my understanding of global social systems and instilling in me a passion for truth. Living in such a transitional and pivotal time, known as the Anthropocene, I feel compelled to expose the chain links between the industrial power structures that moved us here and the people who carried them on their backs. There is no point at which industry ends and man begins. They have built up and within each other like a scab absorbing a bandage, unsustainable progress suspended in liminal time, waiting for the inevitable and painful repercussions. In my studio, objects are born from pain, waiting, frustration, exhaustion, and the desire to challenge both my understanding of, and dialogue with the world around me. Using ceramics, wood and metal I create figures and landscapes that mimic the dysfunction and destruction of Anthropocentric relationships while simultaneously questioning the systems that created them. My current work exists in the realms of discomfort and heartache. It is the quiet of a dry river bed, of a forest without trees, of abandoned buildings and floating plastic bags, allowing the viewer time to ask themselves to relinquish their comfortable blindness, and see the world as it is.

You have several sentences that use very descriptive language, and although this language is engaging it also causes me to lose track of the intended point. What does “experiencing crime waves with economic booms,” mean? Are they parallels that exist in conjunction with each other, or do they happen one after the other? I am able to see a very clear picture of you in this statement, and I think that is a great strength. However, some of the metaphors detract from the clarity of the writing.

Also why did living in Ghana further complicate your understanding of social systems? You allude to it’s role as a pivotal aspect of your life, perhaps that could be expanded upon, (you have space, your word count is 270). It seems like that is an element of your life that could really make this statement reflect you even more. In addition you move from past tense, talking about being an exchange student to speaking in the present tense about the Anthropocene with no transitional statement. Is living in the Anthropocene directly related to living in Ghana? That section is a little unclear.

Regarding formal issues, I think that you should break your statement into paragraphs. It’s your biggie and having it separated into paragraphs will make it easier to substitute in new information, or reorganize later. I think it will also help you access what information is most crucial when cutting your statement back to be the shortie. I also fixed one or two small grammatical errors, but overall I think it is a good statement!