What started my journey as an artist was my family. My mother loved to have my brother and me do all sorts of crafts when we were little. In my childhood, I would paint, sew and do all sorts of other fun crafts with them. My mom really instilled in me the creative aspects of life and encouraged me throughout my childhood and teenage years to pursue what I loved, and what I loved was being creative.
My Mimi– my dad’s mother– reinforced my art interest when I was in elementary school. She would invite my other two close cousins and me over and she would have us do some different crafts each time we came over to her house, such as watercolor painting or card making with ink and stamps. I started to like art even more than I already had after these encounters with her. She really pushed me to be in tune with a more creative side, just as my mom had. In fifth grade, these moments led me to start investing in sketchbooks more, causing me to draw a lot throughout my life.
Later, my Grammy– my mom’s mother– really inspired me in high school. She is now retired and spends her days as a painter. I have always admired her work. She likes to create individualized paintings for my family and she always makes whimsical art for me, such as paintings with fairies or mermaids. She would always send me a text letting me know she thinks that my art is so beautiful and to keep going with my creative pieces. Her compliments on my art and my skills really made me want to look into it as a career, since she also pursues art as a career and she loves her job.
In high school, I began to get more into digital art. I bought my iPad in my junior year and I began to explore the more technological and digital side of art. I fell in love with both kinds, traditional and digital. Ever since I bought the iPad, I found myself picking it up more and more to create digital art while still balancing traditional art.
While choosing a potential major for college, graphic design really stood out to me. I fell in love with digital art and wanted to explore and improve in the field of graphics further. A lot of colleges I was looking into had decent graphic design programs, but KSC’s really caught my eye. On the Art & Design page, it mentioned some skills that one could develop from the program, and those skills were exactly what I was looking for: To develop conceptual, aesthetic, technical and collaborative skills. With these skills, I could move forward beyond college into wherever I may be in the future. With all of that in mind, I still wanted to go into college undecided so I could explore some more options, though my main idea for a major was still definitely graphic design.
While choosing a college, I had three interactions that furthered my choice of where to enroll. The idea of having some people that I knew prior to college appealed to me, and those three people really influenced my choice.
One of those people was someone from my high school, Aiden. I have been friends with him since junior year. We would usually talk and hang out together during classes and sometimes during lunch. We both produced a short film for one of our classes and worked together on it. Our friendship grew from that point on. It was nice to know someone else I knew would be attending the college that I was thinking about going to. Being in the same homeroom as me, Aiden supported my artistic tendencies in high school. He had always been there to see what new things I had made and compliment my skills, while pushing the idea of me going into the creative field.
The next person who was thinking about going to KSC is my best friend of four years, Serena. She had a lot of influence on my potential college choices. I was thinking it would be nice to have someone I am very close with go to the same school as me, so I can hang out with that person on a daily basis while also striving to build new friendships with her. We had planned that we could live together, and I liked the idea of that over having to room with someone random. She is always supportive of whatever I do, and with her help, I decided to move forward with my decision and choose KSC.
The last person who really influenced me to attend KSC is Spencer, who is now a senior at KSC. In 2024, Spencer and I worked together at a movie theater, and he talked about his time at college and what it was like living there. He really influenced me since he mentioned that the campus is awesome and the arts program is amazing. After hearing that, my decision for which college to go to was already made, but he had a big impact on my college choices. Spencer is a film major, and he does animations, so he is familiar with the graphics field, and that aligns somewhat with what I wanted to do, working on the technological side of the arts. He said it was great, so I was sold on the idea of going forward with graphic design.
Near the end of my senior year in high school, Serena and I decided to tour Keene State. We were exploring colleges together since we had the idea that we should enroll in one together. When we first arrived, my first impression of Keene made me pause for a moment. I was in awe of the scenery. It was winter, so it was pretty snowy, and the trees were dead, but I found a certain frosty beauty in it. I instantly fell in love with the campus as well as the town. We toured around the campus with a friendly guide, and during the tour, I already felt welcomed as if I was already a part of the school. I did not get that same feeling when we toured Keene State College’s counterpart, Plymouth State University, whereas I felt uncomfortable and awkward while touring. At some point during the tour, Serena and I both explored the art building, and we both instantly got lost, which is a fun moment I remember since that tour. By the end of the tour, we had very good pasta at the dining hall, and we talked about how amazing the college is and how it would eventually be our top option.
An important concept for a college I was looking for is its size. I am a person who does not like large crowds and is more reserved than most, so I think that a larger college atmosphere would not fit with my life and how I approach things. KSC is a very compact place in general, but I especially liked how the campus is very close together and compact compared to a place such as UNH, which is very widespread, and the buildings are particularly far from one another. Keene was one of the better-suited options for me, which pushed me to further choose KSC. Throughout middle school and high school, my graduating class had always been a smaller number; we graduated with about 60 people in the class. So choosing KSC was important to me because of the close community, and it is on the smaller side than most colleges, which is exactly what was on my checklist. I was told that the class sizes are relatively smaller than those at other colleges, and I really liked that kind of familiarity with that concept. With KSC being a liberal arts school, I already knew from that information that the classes wouldn’t be so full to the point you don’t know anyone’s name, it is very community-based, and the atmosphere isn’t so suffocating. I really liked how KSC recognized the arts and embraced them since I was a very artsy student in my high school, having taken every art class they had to offer. I enjoyed the idea of a college that’s involved in the arts, as KSC is.
The commute to KSC has also played a big part in my decision. My hometown, Epping, N.H., is only an hour and thirty minutes away from the campus and so I liked the idea that if I needed to, I could go home whenever I wanted and that I will still have family nearby to support me through my college career. With that, Keene really felt like home to me, the atmosphere of the town is close together, and I appreciated the rural and urban mixture that I didn’t get in my mostly rural town. The town itself really drew me in, specifically because of the views you get when you are in Keene. The mountains in the distance are truly a beautiful sight, and I have an appreciation for things like that. The town is very open and available for walking, unlike my hometown, where there were no sidewalks to reach destinations; you had to drive everywhere, and taking walks is good for mental and physical health. Overall, I thought that Keene was the right fit for me, and I believe I made a good decision choosing to enroll in Keene State College.
Myleigh Martin can be contacted at
myleigh.martin@keene.edu
