I. On Introductions

As many hours as I’ve spent in front of my computer, typing furously with tunnel-vision focused towards figuring out just why it is I feel compelled to make pictures. After all this, I’m not sure I’m capable of giving an honest, conscise answer for this – other than the fact that I feel compelled to.

What I can tell you is this: When I was 17-some-odd years old, father and I went to San Diego where I saw a retrospe exhibition of Vik Muniz’s work. What happened that day in the galleries of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego is rather ordinary-sounding, but if you could see it would laugh. I dragged my poor father – a man who you might describe as state of Arkansas incarnate – fron room to room spouting excited explanations of why each photograph was so astounding to me, to which he politely feigned interest. That day, an interest linked to each aspect of my current visual arts practice was forged.

I only hope that the long-winded explanation of specifics, in relation to why I feel UCSD is the ideal environment to develop these practices will articulate a sense of belonging I envision without boring you to death. Here goes.

I. The Past, the Present, and Idealized Personal Vision of the Future

For a while there, my dad and I drove to visit his brother in Bakersfield, and always stopped in San Diego for a few days on the way home. I remember passing the UC San Diego campus and fantasizing over what it would be like to walk the campus as a student. Truth be told, I all but forgot about these daydreams when the time for college came around. My MFA program research has gone on casually for three or four years now, always a source of wish-fulfillment fantasy at times when I feel stuck.a I was aware of UCSD but in no specific terms; It was always programs on the east coast, usually NYC that captured my interest. A recent catch-up meeting with a past professor – who I dare is  the only professor from my undergraduate experience I have profound respect for – recommended I read Norman Bryson, a favorite of his. On my way home I picked up “Looking at the Overlooked” and promptly began reading it when I got home. Hours went by in what seemed to be minutes, and three days later upon finishing the text, I can say my mind was blown in a way it hadn’t quite been blown before.

Reading it came uncannily close to home. A series I made in Spring of 2011 called

“Aura of An Era” was motivated by an exploration of the exact concerns articulated in a way so much more profound, I was compelled to research whether or not other outstanding alignments existed among discourses authored by UCSD faculty. Lo and behold, another connection was certainly on the list, which I will go into before I’m done here.

Despite my tone, I will have you know I am vehamently against the idea of “gushing” over anything. Usually, I’m quite attached to “keeping my cool,” so to speak. While sitting there, in front of my computer as usual and delved into research, a practice I’m quite fond of but hadn’t been motivated to pursue for a few months, at this point in time. Fortunately for the UCSD admissions commitee, and unfortunately for myself, I will be unable to

II. My Past, Present, and Idealized Vision of “Future”

My academic background concentrates in Photography, or at least that is what my transcript will tell you. My transcript will also tell you a little bit about how utterly boring the academic environment of my Undergraduate experience was, aside from three courses and one Independent study with a certain professor whose last name starts with a C. I understand now that there is no excuse for mediocre academic performance at the college level (Something I understood at the time, but felt too preoccupied with extracurricular activities to bother too much with). After graduating I worked in a University museum for just over two years, rubbing shoulders and exchanging ideas with people who’s lives were devoted to scholarly dissemination. It was this, and not so much wallowing through the mundane trenches of day-to-day entry level arts administration that kept me going. I loved the glimpses I was getting of academic life and wanted deeply to be a part of it.

The closest I got was a chance to work on a few grants. This was enough, however. It gave me a taste for the challenge involved with really digging for solutions and solve problems facing the creative community via analytic practices. This implanted in my mind that perhaps Art History, and not Visual Art is where I really belonged. My experience with art education simply did not provide the intellectual stimulation I have come to learn I thrive due to. Part of my benefits package here was a tuition waiver, so I applied to the Arts History program and enrolled classes. About a week before these started, my supervisor decided to pull the plug, believing I should devote my energy to training our new employee before diving in to what she knew would consume a great deal of my energy and attention. At this moment, I knew something wasn’t right. My environment didn’t want for me what I wanted, and it was time to go look for somewhere that did.

Over the next few weeks I poured over what my next step would be. I knew it involved graduate school but I didn’t know the answer to “for what?” and “where?”. Close analysis of my practice led me to the conclusion that I wanted to continue studying visual art in a place with versatile structure, strong academic resources, and emphasized research as an integral component of artistic practice. Many colleges and universities dance around this in descriptions of themselves, but none address with the same directness as UCSD.

III. More Specific Connections:

Advancing my Practice Through Technologically-Advanced Practice

I found more precise articulations of things problematized my former experience studying visual art than I have ever been able to come up with on my own. I also found something I hadn’t quite bargained for; An MFA program with a strong emphasis to the integration of advanced technologies into visual arts practice, that didn’t compartmentalize this methodology away from more traditional arts practices, like many programs I’ve come across seem to.

Just a few weeks before, a friend of mine, and the only artist in Memphis I’m aware I believe qualifies as a practitioner of New Media approached me asking for recommendations of essential texts that dealt with the discourse of advanced technologically-based media. Without hesitation I suggested Manovich’s “Language of New Media” as a quintessential starting point. Though my practice does not yet involved with technology at this level, I explained how it was still able to have a profound effect on me a few years earlier.

. Every so often he IMs me, and happened to the day after researching UCSD with a quote from the book. After discussing it for a while, I told him Manovich was not only on the faculty of my new favorite MFA program, but the school also housed a lab considered to be a supercomputing center for the visual arts for the West Coast. We proceeded to “geek out,” for lack of a better term, for a good two hours over this (“we” meaning mostly him going on about what supercomputers and what he could do with regular acess to one.), I believe the ideas I jotted down during that conversation comprise the direction I see my work going in, if I were to be given the opportunity to attend. Many seem to imitate, but no other programs offer this sort of astoundingly advanced resource that I am aware of. Ones that do center around the integration of highly-advanced technology into art making seem to isolate the profound value of these sorts of applications from a wider community of arts discourse, which frankly has cause me to become disillusioned with the entire appeal.

I’m looking to get my feet wet in whatever strikes me enough to develop a strong interest warranting presence in my work. What I perhaps like most about UCSD is that it does not use the term “interdisciplinary” lightly. Only a few places use it in a way that does not sounds out of place; Most give off the air of not just a “buzz-word,” but something more specific, like a deliberately chosen and placed key word to bump them towards the top of prospective student’s Google searches. Whether or not this is genuine might be irrelevant. The fact in this matter is the ways in which things I do become interwoven to form what i call my “visual practice” either wouldn’t be encouragedto a degree that would genuinely comprimise my work, or that they simply lack the highly unique resources available at UCSD.

IV. Cross-Disciplinary Leverage for Collaboration


A third empasis of UCSD is what has essentially ruined all other programs for me in comparison. Not only does typical program structure dissolve at UCSD, along with the parameters imposed on the form student work should take, but also the notion of singular authorship provided by encouraged collaboration. Working collaboratively with creative people is in short dear to my heart. I have organized several exhibitions centered around the idea of collaborative art practice in my work as an independent curator, and currently am working on the largest-scale implementation of this devotion.

I won’t go into detail here, but Art of Science is it’s name; It brings together 33 local artists together in working partnerships with research scientists working for St. Jude Childen’s Research Hospital. It is the second year of the project and the results have been tremendous. Though I am involved only at a curatorial and administrative level, I believe it is one of my greatest creative sucess stories to date. Curatorial work is something I previously thought I would have to abandon to pursue an MFA, or at least deprioritize during my studies. I view curatorial practice, writing, and interpretive work as being deeply integrated component of my visual arts practice, and was thrilled to learn. I was thrilled to learn this sort of integrated practice could thrive genuinely at UCSD through intensive research, and courses that suggest an environment where the idea of artists working as curators are not looked down upon for a lack of scholarly disciple that comprimises the ability to remain objective. Art and intellect seem synonomus here, in a way other places imply through their elevation of “visual intelligence” and “studio practice” to being all an artist should do fall terribly short of.

I will close this part of my statement by touching upon deep interests in relation to courses from your listing. Courses such as “Imaging Selves and Others”, and “Performing for the Camera” encapsilate a lot of what my work is currently concerned with. I believe “Strategies of Self” and “Strategies of Alterity” describe a solution for intellectual hangups with the issue that have developed in the intellectual vaccum of an un-schooled environment. “Re-Thinking Art History” is a concept I’ve explored through my Self as Self By series, which included images I reinvented to include myself, and my understanding of them through an accompanying lecture, and would love a chance to revisit. “Human Interface” examines a theme I’ve become recently engaged with and feel I have much I could contribute to a dialogue concerning. “Communities and Subcultures” and “Public Spheres” offer the intellectual direction to permeate the membrane of gallery walls, something I would like to do through both my arts practice and work with exhibitions and public programming. “Theorizing the Americas” and “Problems in Ethnoaesthetics” hit on key areas of intellectual interest, and the faculty I assume lead these discussions happen to be prolific contributiors to the theorization of visual art in relation to these highly-politicized subjects. San Diego’s proxmity to geographic and metaphric “borders” and the general communities that reside close to them, along with everything aforementioned in this paper will undoubtably culminate into what makes UCSD the abosolute ideal for the environment I visalize myself and my work thriving within.

IV. On “Special Circumstances”

Since you mention “special circumstances” in the description of your admissions procedures, I feel as though I must swallow my pride and address a few things I believe qualify as such. As you will see, the grades I took away from my undergraduate career are not stellar. You seem as though you are a place worthy of only individuals who’s academic achievement is stellar, and this is completely warrented. The excuses, as much as I loate giving them, involve my personal life, my medical history to a certain degree, and an academic environment that much more  sucessful efforts outside of it’s walls than it was able to engage me with inside of them. The photography program I spent the majority of my course hour within cycled through three department heads throughout my four years there, all who taught for two years and went on to become department Chairs at small universities. I was never able to engage with any one of them long enough to feel influenced by them beyond a superficial level, knowing they viewed what they were doing as a stop along the way. Art History tried to pick up the slack of intellectual under-stimulation, but only one professor managed to motivate non-mediocre performance from me. As mentioned previously, one professor who taught under the umbrella of Humanities is all that saved my experience from being completely un-worthwhile. He is also viewed unanimously as the most challenging professor to ever pass through MCA, and who recoomended this program to me.

On other notes, I have gained control over certain aspects of my personality that lacked discipline I lacked at the time. The main thing responsible for lower grades came down to being the fact that I was late to class a lot. I can’t tell you how many end-of-semester discussions I’ve sat down for discussions and been told I deserved a much higher grade, but hands were tied by institutional guidelines. Since then I’ve worked 2 years of full-time hours, and sought medical attention for what turned out to be a somewhat sleep disorder that have regulated this problem almost completely.

Admittedly there were other contributing factors. I allowed extracurricular efforts such as starting an arts collective and working for arts organizations, and a general devotion to self-education outside coursework I should have prioritized too much of my attention. Though this resulted in a level of professional sucess since graduating atypical in comparison to others in a struggling creative creative community, it is certainly a hurdle for pursuit of graduate study, something I want to oursue above all else.

I did however manage to be consistenly self-motivated towards realizing a level of ambition, which has become a personal means to overcome mitigating circumstances throughout my life. I have managed to suceed despite factors that constantly weighed upon me, such as managing a degenerative eye disease that affects my visual practices at all times, and family issues that demanded my attention. The fact that I lack the high academic standing certain apllicants doesn’t hinder me but only motivates me to try harder. I have no doubts about my ability to perform to UCSD’s notoriously high expectations. I hope you will consider me as a candidate for your program in regard to other ways sucess can be measured, and believe when I say academic performance will be my highest priority at UCSD.

I feel as though San Diego has chosen to call me back through a profoundly serindipodous alignment of factors. I want nothing more than to answer this call by joining what I view as the MFA program most suited to my interests. Others might suffice, but fall quite short in terms of the experience you offer. To say “I look forward to hearing from you” would tragically understate how much I truly desire this opportunity. Thank you for your consideration.