We’re featuring pics from our awesome first-year grads’ mid-program reviews. These are works by Darren Schneibel ’21. From Schneibel’s statement: “As a child I sensed that art was a fundamental part of my life. My response to the odd question children are asked felt more like a vision than an answer. “What do you want to be when you grow up?”, they would ask. “An artist”, I would reply. I, now, as then, lose myself in creating, escaping time and my environment. When I reached adulthood, I dismissed my childhood vision as unrealistic. I served seven years in the Navy, primarily in the intelligence community. I collected and managed radar and radio signals, executed deceptive lighting camouflage schemes, managed stealth technologies, and analyzed data collected by satellites, all of which involved exploiting the electromagnetic spectrum. My military experience instilled in me a technical approach to aesthetics. The classified aspects of my occupation exposed me to the power of information control. I developed a fascination with the electromagnetic spectrum and how one tangibly interacts with the visible wavelengths known as light. I felt mesmerized by sunlight’s reflection off the endless rolling waves and the celestial twinkling that I could almost reach out and touch in the middle of an unpolluted ocean. Through those seven years and seas, the light of my childhood vision persisted. Clarity slowly emerged like the sun burning imperceptibly through fog. Eventually the brightness was overwhelming as I realized I had to make my early vision, reality.” Categories Mid-Program Reviews