Creative Awakenings, Vol. 4: Stuffed Animal Parties & Home Films

Written by Edith Manfred, Graphic by Anna Porter

I firmly believe that everyone at art school had an element in their childhood, whether they realize it or not, that pushed them into a creative career path. It can be a myriad of moments: art museum visits, playing with your parent’s camera, or even putting googly eyes on that rock from your backyard and making it your best friend. No matter how seemingly insignificant, these experiences — what I call “Creative Awakenings” — help open our young minds to our personalpotential for creativity. For example, as a kid, I vividly remember painting raw pasta noodles and stringing them onto colorful yarn to create one-of-a-kind pasta necklaces and bracelets. While I didn’t end up as a jewelry design major, this did inadvertently show me how painting unconventional things can make the world far more interesting and stylish! It’s the little things.

In this newest edition of Creative Awakenings, we will explore two of SCAD District’s very own editors and learn about their childhood artistic moments that helped take them to SCAD and, ultimately, to the fabulous staff of SCAD’s student media. Often, we fall into creative pursuits without even realizing how long we’ve loved it. That was the case for both Ally Abruscato and Anna Porter, who each realized that their childhood hobbies translated directly into artistic careers. 

You’d never know it by looking at her graphic design work, but fine art was not always a passion for Anna Porter, District’s Creative Director extraordinaire. Anna had always been more interested in the digital side of art than anything else, and this interest started early in elementary school when she received a life-changing Christmas gift: the Digital Art and Craft Studio. This tablet plugged into a computer with programs to choose different things to draw and create, such as posters and invitations. With this new gadget, eight-year-old Anna became the stuffed animal owner of the year by planning elaborate birthday parties for each of her beloved stuffed animals. In this digital studio, she’d design party invitations, party supplies, and even name tags for all humans and stuffies alike. Each stuffed animal birthday party had a specific theme and a brand to match, all elaborately crafted in digital design. Without even realizing it, Anna immediately took to literal brand design. 

Throughout her life, Anna found herself leading creative things, from those early birthday parties to a “craft club” for her friends. She fell into book design by organizing her friends’ skills to create a “zine,” a mini magazine featuring her graphic design work on the cover and her friends’ artistic talents on each page. We all remember the early social media like Musical.ly, Pic Collage and Tumblr. Anna’s digital design journey progressed to Pic Collage fame in middle school, where her graphics of beloved celebrities gained her fourteen thousand followers. A line can be drawn clearly from this early interest in digital art to her current pursuit of graphic design at SCAD. 

Interest in our current artistic pursuits can often be traced back to hobbies or interests from when we were children. I can explain part of my current interest in photojournalism and my obsession with keeping detailed, illustrated diaries of my elementary school experiences. The deep need to take how I see the world and translate that into comprehensive collections of media makes sense in the context of both pink-sequined diaries and collegiate photo essays. For Ally Abruscato, District’s Editor in Chief, her current photography degree can be traced down the pipeline to her early photography work from high school that sparked it all. Believe it or not (I do), Ally’s first dream was to be a singer. Her American Idol audition at school told her that she was meant for the stage… until she picked up a camera. Her assorted creative projects throughout her childhood affirmed that she would pursue a creative career path, but it was her self-portraiture photography in high school that truly decided it. In her high school photography classes, she found that photography helped her to express herself in a way that she couldn’t figure out with words. Feelings are hard, and self-portraiture became a sort of therapy. Photography allowed her to look inward, having a conversation with herself about what she was feeling. Suddenly, there was no other option for college other than studying photography. 

At SCAD, Ally’s work became less about capturing herself and more about capturing other people. The commercial side of photography is far less emotional but still allows for the artist’s vision to come to life. Taking our creative awakenings and turning them into a career is a blessing that art school students strive for, and by learning about others’ experiences, we can be encouraged by mutual pursuits. Anna and Ally’s journeys into SCAD and District’s student media show that young hobbies and forms of self-expression can fuel fires that light the way to art school and bigger things. Creative journeys are not linear, but through sharing our childhood experiences, we can further understand how we got to where we are now.