Sam Wade, senior, is an artist who sells her artwork and is active in the St. Louis Artist Guild show, which is a resource and advocate for creative expression that supports and promotes the visual arts.

“I mainly enjoy doing portraits and landscapes in realistic style, but I also have the tendency to make my work unnaturally colorful and slightly stylized just for fun,” Wade said.

Wade said her favorite piece of work she has ever done was in Painting 2 last year. She painted a three-panel painting of a jellyfish. She cut the pieces according to the background, middle ground and foreground, and glued them each on short, medium and tall stacks of foam board, which created a 3-D effect.

Over the summer Wade attended a month- long precollege program at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota, Fla. Upon completion, she was one of 10 students chosen out of 150 to get the Dean’s list award based on improvement, willingness to learn and attitude. Wade was nominated by Stephanie McDaniel, Painting teacher, for the UMSL’s Dean’s award for creative Achievement in the Arts that came with a scholarship.

“Sam is hardworking, self-motivated and has great ideas that are put onto canvas,” McDaniel said. “She does not even need that much guidance and is very diverse with her art.”

Wade said she loves art because she loves the idea of using only a pencil or a marker or whatever to make a blank piece of paper that means nothing come to life and suddenly mean so much. She also said it’s something that is completely unique for everybody.

Wade has already taken Art Fundamentals, Drawing 1, Graphic Design 1, Painting 1 and 2, and is currently enrolled in AP Art Studio. She has gotten A’s in every one of those classes and Wade said she enjoys all of the teachers in the art department.

“My sisters and parents are my biggest supporters when it comes to my art,” Wade said. “They encourage me, offer critique, and they are good listeners that yell at me when I threaten to throw my stuff away, which is frustrating, but also sweet.”

Wade said she hopes to work in the animation industry.

“There is something so fascinating to her about a team of people coming together to create an entire world and story of art,” Wade said. “Making animated films is more complex than people realize and is a process I want to be a part of.”

The only art college Wade has applied to is Ringling College of Art and Design with a major in computer animation. She has gotten accepted and already has started taking classes there. She also has met her future teachers and classmates. Wade said she loves it there and knows it is the school she is meant to attend.