Junior Taysia De Mesa is departing for New York in pursuit of a fine arts and drawing course at a private, non-profit school called Pratt Institute this summer. Located in the diverse city of Brooklyn, De Mesa is excited to spend a majority of her summer there expanding her artistic abilities.

“The arts program at Pratt Institute is open to anyone who’s interested in attending an arts college so they can get a good idea of what it’s like,” De Mesa said. “I’m actually really excited to go, I’ll be rooming with my friends from my old schools and I think it will be a very good time. I’ll be staying there for the whole month of July plus a few weeks before and after.”

De Mesa appreciates how art-centered the program is, and is looking forward to being taught by experienced art teachers.

“I like that the program is very art intensive and I just know that’s what I want to do, but I want to experience it first,” De Mesa said. “I’m super looking forward to instruction and learning from the teachers there.”

According to De Mesa, this program will help guide her to her future career choice in art and will better her artistic understandings.

“I was thinking of working in a gallery space when I’m older, mostly in the fine arts field,” De Mesa said. I want to delve towards the creative concept thinking and how sophisticated some artist’s pieces are and where I stand with that, because I’d say I’m pretty good at some of the technical aspects, but it’s about applying them.”

According to De Mesa, art is a learning process and its creativity and intelligence continuously motivates and inspires her, and Pratt is going to be a the ideal place to expand her knowledge regarding it.

“My old art teacher in Texas named Mr. Moss always said to me that, ‘The difference between an artist and a doodler is intent’, and that always stuck with me,” De Mesa said. “Therefore, to me art is mindful and made by geniuses-and I want to be a genius. At Pratt I’ll be surrounded by artists in a city that feeds off creativity, so it’s a great place to learn and experience for sure.”