Growing up, my father encouraged the curiosity within me and my siblings when it came to technology. Our first introduction to any kind of digital art was Microsoft PowerPoint, where we would make our own stories come to life with clip art and default sounds. Soon he’d show us Scratch, a block-based programming language designed by MIT to help kids learn and understand programming better, and the rest was history. The three of us loved making games and animations through Scratch, and as time went by, I decided to take it to another level.
Scratch has an online platform where creators around the world can share their Scratch projects, and that’s just what I did under the name “HEAVENBRAND.” My games got some traction here and there, but it wasn’t until one of them got featured on the front page when everyone started to recognize my surreal, disorienting art style, amassing a following of 1,800+ Scratch users who enjoyed my weirdness. While some people loved my strangeness, others detested it; both made their voices heard and equally motivated me to continue creating. Throughout middle school and high school, I made the most of my knowledge with Scratch and produced several more online games.
Today, my passion carried me through 4+ years of higher education. My first college of choice, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, suddenly shut down during my first spring semester. A year later COVID-19 dictated the way of life, and two years beyond that my father lost his battle with aphasia and passed away. Major setbacks came and went in my artistic journey, but both failed to disrupt my artistic resolve. Now, my pursuit in animation continues in my final semester at Point Park University, where I spend my free time composing my own music, spending time with my two cats and family, and planning out the roadmap ahead for all my creative endeavors yet to come.
