Help Soso Get a Masters :)

Sophia Capaldi is organizing this fundraiser.

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My name is Soso, I'm 24 years old and I'm an artist. I just got accepted to the graduate ceramics program at Tyler School of Art within Temple University with nearly full funding. Currently, I live with my mother and work two jobs trying to pay off my undergraduate loans. In my free time I draw. Even during times that aren't free I can be found drawing something. Making brings myself and others joy. I work at a retirement estate and make stickers for the residents and my coworkers. When I can I raise money for various people in need.

I think my art practice will unlock something in my brain eventually. I have a strong feeling this is the key. It is my ticket out of Ambler at least and an opportunity to get a teaching certificate and have my artwork vetted by a graduate program. Ultimately, I want to be some hybrid of a studio artist. I am also interested in teaching. I want to help people like people helped me and made it possible for me to get this far.

I want to expand the scope of what black artists are “permitted” to do. I want to push the limits and help write new history. I believe I am in a position where I can do this with help. It will not be easy. I am someone who doesn’t have a lot of role models for what kind of a person I am. Maybe I can be that for people later.

In the meantime, I need assistance paying for the remainder of my grad school tuition because I have an opportunity to study with more than one artist of color which I haven’t been able to do yet. There was only one professor of color at my undergraduate that I studied with and I think I need to jump on the opportunity to learn from and be surrounded by a slightly different experience.

I need to raise the remaining 15,000 to support my graduate degree. Everything else is covered. Tyler has offered me 75,000 dollars in funding, but I can’t do it without earning the remainder. I still have over 60,000 dollars in student loans to pay off from my undergraduate degree that I have been steadily chipping away at.

I have been doing art and making things and exploring creatures my whole life and it’s the only thing I have stuck with besides loving people and animals, learning, wanting to go to Japan all the time, and also loving miniatures and not wearing dresses.

Art work has been my life line. It is something I could turn to when I couldn't turn to my parents or friends or family. It’s always there in the shape of what I need to teach me the lesson for the day or for the situation. It’s my thing.

I participated in three online exhibitions and one international zine during the height of the pandemic. Over the past few years I have been a part of 15 group shows and one solo exhibition. I also participated in one underground drag show organized by Jose Queervo.

More examples of my work can be viewed on my instagram @wintercoatsmell

and on my website https://sunshinesalamander.wixsite.com/wintercoatsmell

Please Help me on this perilous journey to love myself

Bachelor of Fine Arts from Penn State

2015 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, work-study program, Deer Isle Maine

2015 Temporary Studio Assistant for Roberto Lugo at Project Art, Cummington Massachusetts

2015 Internship, Happyland Handmade, State College, PA

2016 Kara D. Bergen Scholarship, Penn State School of Visual Arts

2017 CAFD Collaborative Achievement Award, Penn State School of Visual Arts

2017 Studio Assistant Internship, Yarber Studios, State College, PA

2018 Reuben and Gladys Golumbic Scholarship for Design Achievement

2018 Illustrator, Valley Magazine, State College, PA