A student uncertain about his future chose his art over school

By: Emmanuel Mendez

A man taking a picture in front of a mountain landscape art piece. Credit: nicolealexander.com.au

Art always interested Daniel Meza when he was younger. During elementary school and middle school, he showed his art skills his classmates and his teachers alike.

 “I would be home as a kid bored and had nothing to do,” said Meza. “I would then scribble and try my best to recreate images like cars and cartoons that I would watch as a kid.” 

Daniel Meza’s artwork would be recognized throughout every school he attended from elementary school to high school. In high school, he would join an art academy and would participate in art shows. 

His high school would get accepted into an art event and his artwork was a part of the show. He would draw all kinds of characters, especially superheroes. Meza is a big fan of the Marvel films, and that would inspire him to draw all the heroes in the movies such as Captain America and Iron Man. His art teacher in high school said he was one of his best students in the art classes he taught, and said he had a talent. 

“I realized that he was really good at drawing and drew some amazing pictures for my class,” said Mr. Arthur Vallario. “He surprised me all the time when he showed me a new art piece.” 

Meza would listen to his teacher and friends to show the school his artwork at his high school Comic Con. Since Comic Con is mostly about comics, it was a perfect fit for Meza to show his art since most of his art is based off of comic figures like the Avengers or Transformers; both comics were his favorite when he was younger and they still are today. 

Meza would get a lot of people complimenting his work, but he wouldn’t take it seriously or wouldn’t think about his art as being a possible career choice. He would draw for fun to frame his artwork all around his room. 

“I’m a big Marvel fan and I am always excited to watch the Marvel action movies,” Meza said. “It is always on my mind, so I always try to draw my favorite scenes from the movies but for myself.”

After Meza graduated from high school, he would go to college with little money saved up to pay for a year. He was unsure about what he wanted to do in the future. After his first semester in CSI, he realized that college wasn’t for him because of the amount of work and money he had to put into it which would get him stressed out. 

He finally decided to take a break from college and not continue going. He stopped going after his first semester. Now since school was out of the way, he decided to continue making art pieces publicly. He made an Instagram for himself to post his drawings.

Meza continued drawing his favorite heroes and started making portraits of himself and his friends. He started to amass followers and was able to sell some of his drawings.

Meza now realizes that art is his true talent and could possibly take him far if he steps up. Since he doesn’t attend college anymore, he has enough time to prepare more kinds of artwork to impress the general public. 

He wants to participate in more art events and wants to be a part of the art community, and this time off from school could possibly help Meza find what he wants to do in the art world.

“I’m still unsure what the future holds, but I am now more invested into art like never before,” said Meza. “I am still very young and need to try out different things in the art world but hopefully soon I’ll find what I want to do with my talent.”