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(10/01/19 1:19am)
Content warning: This article contains discussions of eating disorders.
The National Eating Disorders Association hosted its first-ever annual Weight Stigma Awareness Week during the week of Sept. 23-27 under the slogan #ComeAsYouAre.
So what exactly is weight stigma? Weight stigma is discrimination or stereotyping based on a person’s size. It can manifest in fatphobia, which is the dislike or fear of being or becoming fat, according to the NEDA. It is the judgment and assumption that a person’s weight reflects their personality, character or lifestyle.
“We, as a community, need to understand how weight stigma and weight discrimination affect people of all sizes, how it contributes to or exacerbates eating disorders in people of all sizes,” a WSAW announcement said.
In 2018, the NEDA and the Binge Eating Disorder Association, “the nation's two leading eating support organizations,” according to an article by the NEDA, merged to unify the community and improve access to resources.
Dr. Wendy Oliver-Pyatt, founder of the WSAW and former officer of BEDA, “strongly urged her board of colleagues to consider making weight stigma an important part of BEDA’s work by instituting a week to bring attention to the harms of and contribution to the development and maintenance of eating disorders,” according to the NEDA.
Weight stigma can occur in healthcare, between friends and family, in education, social media, within the wellness and fitness industry and in public settings.
I talked to a Mercer junior, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitive nature of this topic, about her experience with eating disorders and weight stigma. From around the ages of 14 to 18, she struggled with anorexia, an eating disorder characterized by restrictive eating behaviors and a fear of food or overconsumption.
Other behaviors commonly associated with anorexia include chewing and spitting, counting calories and macronutrients, hiding food intake and developing a constant obsession with weight.
Anorexia is linked to both genetics and environmental causes. For this junior, it was both.
“The genetic component is a predisposition, not a curse, and mine was definitely influenced by my environment,” she said. “I grew up in a home with overweight parents who were constantly dieting, restricting and talking about how ‘disgusting’ they were as a result of their weight.”
She recalls times where her mother’s unhealthy and sometimes toxic eating habits influenced her perception of food consumption and affected her consciousness of her body image.
“She would be vocal about why and when. She would always justify eating and the food choices she made, so I grew up thinking I had to justify myself too,” the junior said. “She taught me that foods are either good or bad and nothing else, nothing about the nuances of health and micro or macronutrients.”
Her mom would often make subtle remarks to her about people’s attire while out and about, making comments about their body and what they should and shouldn’t wear based on their appearance.
“That was my first experience seeing weight stigma in action and I totally internalized it. It’s what made me want to take so many dramatic steps to avoid gaining weight,” she said.
During this time, she realized she had a disordered relationship when it came to food and eating and continued to maintain this disordered pattern until her freshman year at Mercer, away from her mom.
“My mother taught me that being fat was being worthless and undeserving of eating, dressing and doing what you want,” she said. “She showed me indirectly that the less you eat, the better, and she never taught me about balance or wellness or nutrition. To this day, she judges what and when and how much I eat so I try to avoid having conversations with her, and absolutely I avoid eating with her.”
Witnessing her mother’s relationship and perception of her weight shaped her personal approach to how she sees people and their bodies. This learned behavior constructed her outlook on how her self worth compared to others based on appearance.
“The part of my eating disorder that I hated the most was how it made me project the weight stigma that my mom always projected onto me: I felt that I was superior to others when I was thinner than them,” the junior said. “That mindset faded when I recovered, but I was angry that I had ever thought that way.”
Since attending Mercer, she has developed a healthier mentality when it comes to her body and eating habits and has since recovered from her eating disorder.
“Now I’m big on body neutrality: not loving or hating your body because the way it looks actually has nothing to do with who you are as a person,” she said.
This Mercer student isn’t the only one who has been impacted by weight stigmatization. Research from South Carolina’s Department of Mental Health indicates that eating disorders have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), potentially 4.4-5.9% of teens enter college with a preexisting, untreated eating disorder. The average age of onset for anorexia is 19, bulimia is 20 and binge eating disorder is 25.
The Eating Disorders Information Network is a non-profit organization whose mission statement says they’re “committed to the prevention of all types of disordered eating, and to the promotion of positive self-esteem through awareness, education and outreach.” Their current advocacy efforts include their #MyBodyDeclaration campaign.
NEDA’s #ComeAsYouAre campaign and EDIN’s #MyBodyDeclaration campaigns advocate for the same thing: encouraging the acceptance of bodies in all shapes and forms, supporting recovery, promoting body positivity and ending the stigmatization of body image and weight.
When people compare themselves to one another, they are subconsciously placing themselves on a scale, measuring their self worth to fit society’s standards and norms.
Deb Burgard, PhD Fellow for the Academy for Eating Disorders, is one of the founders of the Health at Every Size model, which is a movement to promote size-acceptance in hopes to end weight discrimination and to lessen the cultural obsession with weight loss and thinness.
She said in an article this past week that weight stigma assigns value to the body. Dr. Burgard says we are all fighting the same enemy.
“That enemy is the ranking of bodies — and with that, a ranking of worth,” she said.
(08/14/19 7:57pm)
“Shirt just got real.”
No, really. That’s the slogan for Mercer’s newest apparel distributor, Mercer Fresh Prints. Step aside Custom Ink, move along Clip Art, there’s a new apparel company in town.
Fresh Prints is a custom apparel company that was founded in 2009 by two sophomores in college who wanted to remove the corporate middleman when it comes to custom apparel for student-run clubs and organizations. They have one goal, and one goal only: to get shirt done.
The company works by selecting campus managers and providing these college students with resources to run businesses on their campus. One of these campus managers is none other than Mercer’s own Casey Colquitt.
Colquitt, a rising junior, is a Fresh Prints Campus Manager majoring in marketing.
“What really drew me to applying was the energy and culture of the company,” she said. “It is such a motivating environment, and I’m even regularly in contact with our co-presidents about what’s going on with our campus.”
Fresh Prints doesn’t consider their campus managers to be “representatives” — instead, they consider them to be entrepreneurs.
“Being in organizations on campus, I’ve worked with a good amount of great apparel brands. I was always confused on the process of everything: from proofs, stock levels, invoices and printing,” Colquitt said. “I know how much more efficient it would have been if someone was there to help make my ideas come to life, and now I have the opportunity to be that person for other people.”
The company allows campus managers to build their own custom apparel business, create their own hours and earn from the commission.
“I think it’s easy to see a business as a very materialistic and not personable environment, which is something that has scared me,” the marketing major said. “I’ve found with Fresh Prints that I can help people and also incorporate my love for marketing and networking into one.”
Colquitt said she is excited to take what she learns this year in her courses here at Mercer and apply them to her business with Fresh Prints. Her long-term goal is to establish close relationships with her clients and ensure organizations are getting the best products and designs for their money.
“I really value trustworthy and personal relationships, and that’s been the easiest part of getting this started,” she said. “I’m super close with my bosses, but I’m also always in contact with my clients as friends, students and business partners.”
(08/14/19 7:33pm)
Over the summer, the bears left the den for three months — but what exactly were they up to during this time? Mercer’s Center for Career and Professional Development boasts about their ability to help students find summer internship opportunities so that students can gain academic credit or experience.
Joshua Dupaty, a fourth-year biomedical engineering major, spent his summer participating in a Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program sponsored by the National Science Foundation.
“I had heard about this REU from Dr. Thomas and thought it would be a great opportunity to broaden my interests within biomedical engineering,” Dupaty said.
He worked in Dr. Martha Gillette’s lab on imaging neuron cultures and conducted research on different biomarkers for neurological disorders to see if he could find correlations between them.
A part of the program involved participating in the Illinois Summer Research Symposium to present the research they had conducted that summer through both poster and oral presentations. Dupaty received an honorable mention for an outstanding oral presentation at the two day conference.
However, some bears didn’t stray too far from the den. Junior Nashaya Bartolo, double-majoring in Law and Public Policy and English, spent her summer working at the Parish House of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in downtown Macon.
The church is home to a summer program referred to as the Freedom School, which offers programs for helping elementary students improve their reading skills and learn self-empowerment. The program is funded by the Children’s Defense Fund, whose motto states that “reading is the key to unlocking a child’s unlimited potential.”
Bartolo worked as a servant leader intern as one of the teachers of the Freedom School. Before the start of the program, the servant leader interns and the site coordinators completed a full week of training in Knoxville, Tennessee.
“The greatest lesson I’ve learned through this experience would be the power of positive influence,” Bartolo said. “While there were times when I had to practice patience, this position made me realize that a lot of the scholars see Freedom School as a safe place where they can be who they are and feel their true emotions.”
The program refers to their students as "young scholars" and gives them opportunities for personal growth and enrichment through a variety of activities and field trips to the Ocmulgee Mounds and to Dickey’s Peach Farm.
“The greatest reward is seeing your children change positively throughout the program, whether it is a child becoming more outgoing, more independent, more compassionate or most importantly: more literate,” she said.
(03/02/19 4:12pm)
It’s no secret that within the past year, the infamous YouTube sensation Shane Dawson went from his classic vlog-style videos with friends to more hard-hitting, documentary-style videos.
His most recent documentary-esque series focused primarily on conspiracy theories. In two episodes that were released a week apart from each other, Dawson discusses theories surrounding deep fakes, subliminal messaging in children’s television and the Woolsey fire, among others.
The latest release followed three distinctive stories. Dawson investigated a Chuck E. Cheese conspiracy theory about the lack of uniformity in their pizza slices suggesting that the pizza slices were recycled, unused slices from other customers; he also explored a theory uncovering new voice-mimicking technology and shared a friend’s heart-wrenching story of a Tinder love story gone wrong through alleged attempts of human trafficking.
Throughout the hour and 45-minute-long video, Dawson frequently shifted between each story, strategically weaving them together as he transitioned within topics. While hard to follow, some have noted that this was the artistic style Dawson and his filming partner, Andrew Siwicki, chose in order to lighten the major topic at hand — the domestic abuse of fellow YouTuber Brittani Louise Taylor.
The upload hit 17 million views within the first two days of publication. Since its release, there have been a number of YouTubers who are ordering pizzas from Chuck E. Cheese in attempts to debunk this theory.
Conspiracy or not, it’s no question that Dawson’s series gave Chuck E. Cheese more attention than it has gotten in decades. Twitter users speculate that their sales have increased temporarily out of public interest as people attempt to test out the theory for themselves. I suppose all publicity is good publicity.
Dawson’s passion for creating documentary-like content has changed the framework for what YouTube could be. Many said this about Casey Neistat, a New York City native filmmaker, years ago. Neistat transformed the platform when he decided he wanted his videos to double as mini-movies, adding cinematography and plotlines to an average, everyday vlog.
Following Dawson’s eight-part series on Jake Paul, “The Mind of Jake Paul,” Paul himself attempted to hop on the documentary bandwagon by releasing his own series, dubbed “Jake Paul: Uncut.” The series was canceled after its second episode.
While there is no way to know for sure whether or not these conspiracies are true, it’s evident that Shane Dawson is setting a new bar for creators on the platform. His mere ability to bring unspoken topics back into relevancy and grasp an audience’s attention to tell stories that he’s passionate about are what’s blurring the line between YouTube content and mainstream media.
Here’s to waiting another two months for yet another Shane series.
Rating: 7.5/10
(02/13/19 1:14am)
Mercer Film Society, a student-run organization on campus, is encouraging students to celebrate film during their Oscar’s Watch Party Feb. 24.
The organization is dedicated to preserving and disseminating the knowledge of film as an art form, and augmenting the appreciation and understanding of film in general through screenings and discussions, according to their Facebook page.
“Events like the Oscar party are going to be a really fun, community activity,” said Kelly Caviness, Mercer Film Society’s president. “I hope we get bigger events like that for everybody to come together.”
Mercer Film Society was officially recognized by the Student Government Association (SGA) in early 2018, but the idea of the organization first culminated in the fall of 2017.
“I think there’s not enough presence in the media department at Mercer, and I thought that maybe a film society would be a great way to bring recognition to the media department as well as bringing students together on campus that maybe wouldn’t necessarily be together otherwise,” Caviness said.
Mercer senior and vice president of Mercer Film Society, Devyn Harrod, has been there since the beginning and hopes to one day get the organization to partner with the Macon Film Festival, and become involved with nearby universities who hope to strengthen and encourage film enthusiasts.
“We should have more of a film community on campus,” Harrod said.
Student involvement in film-related activities at Mercer has shown that there is a desire for a wider presence of film on campus.
“Our students at Mercer, they enjoy film. They go to the midnight movies, they go to movies on the Quad. People enjoy movies, they enjoy film,” she said. “I felt that joining the Mercer Film Society and getting it started would be able to provide an outlet for these students to further get involved in something that they loved and want to do.”
As students under the Media Studies department at Mercer, both Caviness and Harrod emphasized the power that film has when it comes to the unification of people who are passionate about the film industry.
“Film is important, it can unite a bunch of people. You don’t even have to share the same language to watch a movie together,” Caviness said.
As the film industry becomes more progressive, Mercer Film Society aims to welcome students of all backgrounds to partake in the celebration of film and all it has to offer.
“There has been that push in the Oscars and within the motion pictures industry for more diversity, more inclusion and more representation,” Harrod said.
She said that she wants to bring this trend that's happening on a large scale in the industry to Mercer's campus and to welcome people of different background and majors to come together and explore the world of film.
The Oscars Watch Party will be Feb. 24 at 7:30 p.m. and snacks will be provided. They will host three screenings throughout this semester on the second Thursday of each month in Stetson 151.
(01/30/19 2:47am)
Cherry Street is home to the new and improved Ampersand Guild that hosts a poetry and spoken word event every second Friday of the month.
When Winsphere Jones, a playwright and two-time published author moved back to his hometown of Macon, he was immediately drawn to Ampersand Guild.
“It’s the root system for something greater in Macon,” he said. “To me, Macon is an arts hub. It’s just not expressed as much as it should be.”
Jones is devoted to engaging Macon residents in supporting local artists and celebrating the art that is being created by people within their community.
“People will pay $200 to see something somewhere else, but they won’t pay $20 to come to a very honest, pure and original show done by somebody in their hometown,” he said. “Don’t limit the people in the city by having them leave to explore and find culture when they have it right here in their own city. Use the people that are here.”
He often recalls remarks about Macon’s untapped potential and believes that the art scene is a part of the culture that needs to be utilized and celebrated.
“This place is where people can come express and be molded into the artist that they want to be,” Jones said. “It’s a starting point for those who never knew about the arts or who have never been involved in theater or poetry, but they find it here.”
The event encourages a safe space for members of the community to explore their creative aspects in a nonjudgmental space.
“The artists that are inside of people cannot emerge until they are given the opportunity to at least express it,” he said.
Each event has a featured artist to perform their piece. February’s featured artist, poet and author Michael Scott, encourages young adults to express themselves with a sense of depth and critical thinking and steer away from digital culture.
“I would love the younger generation to move away from whip and nae-naeing and move into deep thought,” Scott said. “Our society is slowly getting dumbed down. We don’t say ‘be right back’ anymore, we say BRB. We don’t say ‘I gotta go,’ we say G2G.”
Jones emphasizes the importance of using art, whether it be through spoken word, music or poetry, as an outlet to release pent-up turmoil.
“Sometimes in spilling these emotions you purge a lot of feelings you may have in the world, but that purging is actually a part of creativity within you that becomes something organic that you may not have even known was there,” he said.
Jones wrote his book while he was purging his feelings through writing and won two awards in the process.
“It may not have been perfect, but that’s not the point,” he said. “The point is that I was able to get over things by being able to express them through writing, through the arts.”
Jones aims to help people of all ages and cultures to let go and delve into the power of writing.
“We are here to support each other, no matter what we’re doing,” he said. “We may not understand what the poem is about, that’s not for us to judge. We’re just supposed to listen and take it in.”
He wants each month to bring new people with new stories into Ampersand. He believes that everyone is a vessel and that they have the power to touch others through their art.
“There are so many talented people here that have not been tapped into, or they don’t know they’re talented, they just haven’t been in a situation to express it,” Jones said. “If you are truly yourself, you’ll always be successful.”
While the monthly event primarily focuses on poetry and spoken word, Jones aims to expand and introduce theatrical performances and music to Ampersand’s stage.
“Poetry is essential to life, and life is essential for poetry to exist,” Jones said.
The event is funded by the John S. and James. L. Knight Foundation, which promotes freedom of expression, and seeks visionary projects that lead to positive community engagement according to the event’s Facebook page.
The next Poetry and Spoken Word event will be held Friday, Feb. 8 at 7 p.m. Mercer students with student IDs who are not performing will cost $7 and for those who are performing it is $3.
(11/30/18 11:32pm)
The holiday season is coming up, and the opportunities to get festive this year are endless. The Middle Georgia area has many opportunities to liven your holiday spirits by attending one of their many parade events next month.
Main Street Macon Christmas Parade
This year’s Main Street Macon Christmas Parade will be from 4-6 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 2 in downtown Macon. According to Main Street Macon, it is a great day of family-friendly festive fun for the entire community. The theme for this year’s parade is “merry and bright”. Join the Macon-Bibb Community as marching bands, festive floats, bicycle brigades, motorcycle clubs and of course, Santa, will march down Cherry Street and Mulberry Street in downtown Macon as thousands gather to kick off the holiday season.
Milledgeville Christmas Parade
The 2018 Milledgeville Exchange Club Christmas Parade will be held from 6-8 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 15 in downtown Milledgeville. This annual event is only about an hour away from campus, and the theme this year is “A Hometown Christmas.” Admission for this event is free.
Lake Tobesofkee 2018 Christmas Boat Parade
The annual Christmas Boat Parade is being held at Fish N Pig on Saturday, Dec. 1 from 4-7 p.m. The event is only about 15 minutes away from campus and entry is free. At the event, there will be a social hour, last minute boat decorating and boat judging. The parade will start at 6 p.m. at Fish N Pig and will travel up the lake to Arrowhead Park before returning back to Fish N Pig where prizes will be awarded to the top-rated boats. There will also be treats and hot chocolate for the attendees.
Robins Regional Christmas Parade
The Robins Regional Chamber is holding their Christmas Parade from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 1 in Warner Robins. According to the event page, the Robins Regional Chamber’s Christmas Parade is one of Georgia’s largest holiday events and provides a great opportunity for area organizations and businesses to gain valuable exposure and show off their community spirit. Each year thousands of community members attend this holiday event on the first Saturday each December where businesses, civic groups, educational organizations and recreational entities unite in an effort to make the season jolly. The event will also be broadcast live on local radio and television stations.
(11/30/18 1:09am)
Nearly 75 percent of undergraduate students in America are considered to be ‘non-traditional’ by the U.S. Department of Education’s standards, and the number of adult learners has risen over the past decade. Across campuses, Mercer University has established programs to help these students go back to school despite some challenges they may face.
Brian O’Donnell, 33, is a third-year mechanical engineering major who began his journey at Mercer in the spring of 2017 after not attending school for about 10 years.
“In the back of my mind, I always knew I was going to come back,” O’Donnell said. “I didn’t have any set time frame.”
O’Donnell previously attended the University of Georgia for three years as a full-time, traditional student, but left the school in 2007 to work. He decided to pursue his undergraduate degree once more in the spring of 2017 and enrolled at Mercer part-time for the semester while working a full-time job.
When his contract with his employer ended in August 2018, O’Donnell became a full-time Mercer student.
“It was gradual over time until I knew that I could take on more than I currently had,” he said.
During his time away from his studies, he worked as an audio technician for a company in Stone Mountain, Georgia before becoming an area sports representative for BodyArmor Sports Drink.
“That’s another thing that led me to coming back to school,” O’Donnell said. “It was a job in a technology-based field and realizing, ‘Oh okay, I am interested in this,’ or ‘I do have an aptitude in this degree that I started.’ You get that confidence.”
Getting the opportunity to gain experience in his preferred field before continuing his education reaffirmed his confidence in his prospective career and his decision to complete his degree.
“That’s what I realized now in my 30s: I just barely know now what I want to do as a profession for the rest of my life. I didn’t know what when I was 18, 19, 20,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I have to be a mechanical engineer for the rest of my life, but if it’s something I want to do or think I can develop in over the next five to 10 years, then it makes sense to have a degree in that field.”
When it comes to being a nontraditional student on an undergraduate campus, O’Donnell’s complaints are few. Besides not living on campus, his only worry is that he has more obligations than a traditional student would due to his age, but he said it was only a minor concern.
“I don’t want to seem like the eternal optimist here, but everything is what you make of it,” he said. “I don’t really see any negatives to it.”
Mercer received a $1.1 million federal grant in 2015 from the U.S. Department of Education “to improve retention, graduation and literacy among its nontraditional students,” according to The Telegraph.
The grant provides $220,000 annually for five years and scholarships for up to 140 students of the university. It also helped fund Student Support Services (SSS), a division of the federal TRIO program that provides disadvantaged students with resources such as peer tutoring tailored to adult students.
“Often, non-traditional students have to handle the additional pressures of effectively balancing work, family life and schoolwork,” according to the website for the Academic Resource Center (ARC), which provides programs for older learners. “Understanding the challenges you will face and becoming an active participant in overcoming those challenges will help ensure your academic success.”
Mercer has maintained programs for older students on other campuses as well.
Penfield College was established as The College of Continuing Education in the late 1980s specifically for adult students, and Mercer established the Educational Opportunity Center (EOC) to offer free services to adults.
According to the EOC website, most adult students chose to return to college to further their education beyond a high school diploma or GED, but some never completed high school and would like a GED while others are interested in changing careers.
Students like O’Donnell found that Mercer’s flexibility made going back to school easier.
“Mercer’s great in that they worked with me as being a nontraditional student or a student coming back after so many years,” O’Donnell said. “Their ability to move quickly and adjust to every case is very unique.”
(11/14/18 7:36pm)
More college students are going to the polls than ever, but Mercer students turn out at higher rates than others schools, whether it be in person or through absentee ballots. In the 2016 election, Mercer had the highest student voter participation rate among NCAA Division 1 schools, according to a Mercer press release.
“The 18 to 24 demographic is really an untapped swing group that I think at some point is going to be tapped in. They could really carry the election,” Doug Pearson, Mercer’s vice president for student affairs and dean of students, said in an interview that year.
Mercer’s overall voting rate was 54.3, and 80 percent of its students were registered to vote, according to a study in the National Study on Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE) report.
Some Mercer students have changed their registration to vote in Bibb County as opposed to sending in an absentee or provisional ballot or early voting in their hometown.
Georgia has increased their early vote rates among 18 to 29-year-olds by nearly five times in comparison to 2014, according to The Independent.
Monliyah King, a freshman, is among the many students that changed their voter registration in order to cast their ballots in Macon this year. She said she feels it is her civic duty to participate in the voting process.
“I feel like everyone’s voice should be heard, and voting is a way to do that,” King said.
Student Jamilah Hudgins also changed her ballot so she could vote early in Macon. She said that the process to change her registration was a lot easier than she expected it to be.
“I think that people complain a lot about the problems that are going on, but they do nothing to change it. But why not vote to do at least something instead of sitting on Twitter?” she said.
Mobilize Mercer is a student-driven voting initiative that seeks to raise voter awareness and participation on Mercer’s Macon campus.
The group held a watch party after polls closed Nov. 6 in the Connell Student Center to celebrate the turnout. They provided wings, pizza and doughnuts for students to enjoy as they waited on the results to come in.
In the past, the club has organized voter registration drives, held other watch parties and conducted polls to educate students about the importance of voting.
Civic Youth, an organization that gathers statistics, found that approximately 50 percent of eligible young adults voted in the 2016 election. That equals roughly 24 million votes.
A study conducted by The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, in early 2016 projected that voters aged from 18-29 years old had the most potential to impact the Presidential and Congressional elections.
Despite the large increase in voter participation this election, some students still do not participate. Mercer student Will Kerdasha is among this group.
“I just don’t vote,” he said. “I just feel like the whole system is kind of corrupt. Politicians are self interested. I don’t feel like my vote has that much of an impact.”
(10/20/18 1:58am)
For Morgan Brady, what began as a way to bond with her grandmother when she was younger became her go-to stress reliever and one of her favorite hobbies.
Her love for art began when she was in middle school.
“The earliest memory probably has to be with my grandma,” she said. “I send her everything that I do.”
Brady’s grandmother’s natural talent and love for painting encouraged her to begin her journey as an artist. Art is one of the many ways Brady keeps herself productive.
“I always have to be doing something with my brain,” Brady said. “I always have to have my mind on something or else, I’d go crazy.”
Like her grandmother, Brady’s favorite art form is painting. She says she prefers to do more psychedelic inspired paintings and doodles in her free time.
Her inspiration can often be a reflection of her moods and experiences, despite the fact that her pieces often start with no definitive idea in mind. For her, art is the ability to display emotions on a canvas for others to see.
“I just like seeing progress,” she said. “I like seeing something from start to finish.”
Brady is on the pre-law track at Mercer and is currently a third-year psychology major with a minor in art. While art is her passion, she dislikes being graded for art and hates the idea of strict deadlines, as it constricts her creative ability.
“I know that I can do art well when I’m on my own time, but when I’m on a time limit, it stresses me out and I feel like I don’t perform my best,” she said.
Alongside many artists of our generation, she finds that the most difficult aspect of art for her is being able to be proud of her work.
“I see my flaws in absolutely everything that I make, it flusters me,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been content with a piece.”
As an artist, it can often be difficult to acknowledge the quality of your work.
“Sometimes if I start looking at little things, it’s what throws me off, and then I think the whole thing is bad,” the junior said.
Her most vivid memory was from 2016, when she freehanded a collage for her friend’s living room table as a centerpiece.
“He was like, ‘Morgan I want you to paint something really cool on it,’ so I sat there the entire summer and worked on it,” she said. “It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.”
Brady often enjoys curating art pieces for her friends to have.
“I have the ability to do it, so why not share it with people?” she said.
She finds art in many places and believes that everyone in one way or another contributes to art.
“I think everyone’s an artist in their own way,” she said. “Everyone has a unique ability to do something, whether it’s singing, or dancing or being able to recite the Declaration of Independence.”