Joanna Xu

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I'm a 17-year-old high school senior in San Jose, California. I started art class when I was 7, but actually began drawing when I learned to hold a pencil.
Art and I have had an enduring, decade-long relationship with occasional bouts of frustration, but we've always stayed together due to the mutual benefits. When I moved to the U.S. at age 7 (before, I lived in a rural Chinese town), I didn't know a word of English. Art was my form of self-expression at a time when words could not serve that purpose, when I was an outcast in elementary school with a foreign tongue and odd-looking clothes. I would spend whole days at art class, not even leaving my easel to eat.
My art teacher is the most critical, demanding despot that I have never known—and he is a perfect teacher. He ruthlessly pushes me, forces me to go beyond technical proficiency into the imagination. He does not accept any piece of art that doesn't embody a distinct message, a unique composition, and a tint of the extraordinary. He urges me to pursue a career in art, and I only hope I am worthy.