This whole topic is tricky for me. I have had many places in my personal life where I never thought I would be able to do something. Whether that was out of anxiety or uneducated teachers it was all the same. As I mentioned in my “about me” spiel, I have dyslexia which affects my reading and writing ability. If this post was just about my personal life I would say that nobody expected me to fall in love with writing, yet I did. My grammar is still not perfect and my mom still helps edits my work (which is pretty embarrassing to admit). I know that I need to talk more about my professional life otherwise known as my internship. Well, unfortunately, there’s a lot of things to discuss.
First, let’s talk about Illustration and design I never thought I would be able to do anything in this field. My original plan was to be a programmer and illustration would be a side gig. I didn’t think this field of work was compatible with my skill set. Honestly, I never really believed my designs would be good enough or that anyone would want to pay for them; I also thought my art was not as good as “those other people”.
One summer, to help me figure out if I had talent (or not), I attended a summer art college. Surrounded by people who had worked and practiced at art for YEARS, and appeared to have far more skill and worked harder to develop their artistic talents, I was surrounded by amazing artists. You might think that being surrounded by talented artists would increase my anxiety, but actually, their talent gave me the confidence to post my artwork online. I look back every once and awhile and am proud of how far I’ve come in my art and the improvements I’ve made.
I’m very excited about my new internship — it’s my first real “almost” job! I developed a client logo and postcard and learned so much from this experience. I am still constantly learning and cannot count how many times I’ve had to look up size formats for social media.
Earlier I mentioned I have trouble writing. Some teachers didn’t think I would ever be able to write and that I might always need a scribe to write for me. Somewhere, somehow, I started writing for fun — and that’s when the magic happened; nothing tricky about it really. Teach me how language works, teach me using the “science of reading and language” and I will learn to read — and I will succeed. I didn’t think writing would be something I would enjoy, but I was wrong.
Catherine Schultz's Media Portfolio 