Breaking Away: I Love My City

Detroit is a city of innovative pioneers, booming creativity, and plenty of funky personalities. I decided early on as a child that I wanted to be among them. But first, I decided what I did not want to be and that was the stereotype of what many others think of when they see a teenager from Detroit. I did not want to be seen as uneducated, uncultured and poor. I knew that I wanted to do more, to become more. When I was younger I aspired to be an attorney, a singer, a writer or some sort of designer. By the time I was thirteen, I had taken courses in fashion design at the College for Creative Studies, community art programs and summer jobs with Community Arts Partnership, and ceramic classes at Pewabic Pottery. I was doing all of this because I knew that I wanted to achieve more than what was expected of me.            

In 2011, I took a three week credited course in Graphic Design at the College for Creative Studies. For my final project I was asked to choose a phrase and give it an emotion that could be viewed in the form of posters and postcards. The phrase I chose was “break away”; I chose it as a reflection of my childhood and who I ultimately want to be. I challenged my instructor and myself when I created my own adaptation of the assignment. Prior to this experience I did not have a clear idea of what I wanted to be, I did not know how or that I could break away to define, redefine and create new beliefs for myself. During the course it became clear to me that my instructor was encouraging me to develop an interest in graphic design, maybe even that I become a graphic designer. 

However, graphic design is not my passion. I came to realize that what others think or want for me, even if something positive, like being a graphic designer, does not mean that it is what I should want for myself. I realized that sometimes the “right answer” is not what is “right” for me. There was this doubt within me, doubt of my value, my city, and whether my final project would be good enough. The day before my final critique I took a risk and recreated my entire project from scratch. While everyone else sat around the bonfire roasting marshmallows I stayed in the twenty-four hour lab fumbling with Photoshop, a program I barely knew how to use. When I went to pin my final design on the board the class went silent, but they nodded in agreement and acceptance as I defined what it meant to me and why I chose the phrase “break away.” Choosing to push against what has been expected of me as a student from Detroit has not been easy. It also was not easy to do something different from what my graphic design instructor wanted for me. But I would make the same decisions a dozen times over. I learned that when creating a piece it is important that it represents me and what I want to stand for entirely. I want to be successful, honest, and influential, and I can break away to define and redefine what I want to be.