One in Seven Billion: A Senior Amplified Art Project by Thuy-Tien Le (2015)

For this Blink amplified unit, we practiced automatic writing and expressing ourselves through art in various traditional mediums. We were given a series of quotes to react to and from those quotes, we created three pieces of writing, a zentangle, a mandala, and creative word art. For my amplified piece, I combined those pieces together along with a picture that I took to represent an idea spawned from one of my writing pieces. The idea that I chose was my struggle to find individuality in a world where everyone seems to be the same. To portray that visually, I took a picture of a group of purple flowers that all look the same and then I made one of the flowers different by decorating it with pieces from my zentangle, mandala, and word art.

My time at Freestyle Academy has been the two most valuable years of my life so far. I have learned so much here, not just in the visual arts, but also in how to grow and express myself as a person. On the surface level, I have definitely improved my skills in creative writing, film, and design. I find that I am now much more confident when I am asked to express myself creatively. On a much more personal level, I have also found that I am much more willing to take risks and try things that are outside of my comfort zone. Freestyle has really fostered that sense of I can do absolutely anything! and I am so so glad that I took the initial risk to spend two years here. Without Freestyle, I don't think I would be where I am now. Next year, I plan on embarking on a journey to New York City to join NYU's class of 2019. I will be pursuing a B.S. in Integrated Digital Media, which is a combination of two of my passions: computer programming and the digital arts. Freestyle has obviously prepared me both in my skills and as a person to take on this challenge.