For junior Angela Christodoulou, her family is her inspiration for becoming an artist.

“Growing up, both my mom’s side and my dad’s side of the family were very artistic. My mom’s side was more into music and my grandpa was an actor. On my dad’s side, my grandma was an artist, so growing up that rubbed off on me,” Christodoulou said.

Though her family was artistic, Christodoulou says that you have to find the passion for art within yourself.

“The influence I had from my family did benefit me to a certain extent, but I feel like it has to be inside of you, like nobody can tell you to become someone you are not and you have to find that within yourself,” she said.

Her favorite part of being an artist is that it helps her express herself.

“It really lets me express myself in ways that words can’t. I specialize in drawing people and I really like showing the different emotions of a person, like I guess the raw figure,” she said.

Christodoulou says she plans on pursuing art as a career.

“I’ve been looking at a few art colleges in Chicago and I definitely want to pursue it,” she said.

People often mislabel artists as just sitting in the studio and drawing, not caring about life, but that’s not necessarily true, and it’s something that resonates with Christodoulou.

“This [is] actually something that has been popping up a lot and it really resonates with me because a lot of people think artists are just bums and they don’t really care about life and they’re just gonna paint portraits on the side of the road and like not really do anything with their life,” she said.

Being an artist does not mean that there is no chance of amounting to anything. Christodoulou takes great pride in having other hobbies than art and believing in herself.

“Just because you’re an artist, doesn’t mean you won’t amount to anything and you won’t make something out of yourself. It could also mean that you’re really passionate about other things too. For example, me, I love to learn and I love to study, like I actually really enjoy going to school and I don’t just go to school for art and I actually really want to do something with my life and that’s something a lot of people don’t really think artists are capable of doing,” she said.