An Artist's Balance

It takes an artist’s creativity to manage two majors, and PUC junior Jasmine Kelley creates works of art every day.

“I stay up late, I wake up early,” she says. “I like being busy…I just have to work out my time.”

Jassy, as she is known around campus, is working toward degrees in photography and graphic design. Currently in the final quarter of her junior year, she is taking an overload of credits to avoid a crush of last-minute requirements felt by many seniors. In addition to the academic abundance in her schedule, Jassy works at the front desk of Winning Hall and hopes to be a resident assistant in the dorm next year.

The past several months, Jassy has also volunteered her time with both the PUC and La Sierra University chapters of REVO, an organization that encourages students to work toward positive change in the local and worldwide community. She frequently donated her services as a photographer toward this year’s effort to provide a stable environment for at-risk children in the Napa Valley and shoes and treatment for foot disease in Africa.

Next year, Jassy will tackle a major artistic challenge: not one, but two senior theses. Each of her artistic majors requires one, so she will have her hands just as full next year. Projects she’s considering include production of a book of photos she took in the Yucatan peninsula on a trip last year and a collection featuring the outdated but emotive medium of Polaroid film.

After graduating from PUC, Jassy plans to attend graduate school to boost her qualifications as a designer and photographer, before seeking a career in magazine publication. She is currently working on her photography portfolio and hopes to get some of her work published soon.

She learned the importance of balancing challenging responsibilities from her mother, who works hard to help Jassy afford school. Her home church, Oakland-Immanuel Temple SDA in Oakland, helps when it can. But for the most part Jassy is putting herself through school hour by hour at Winning Hall and by earning additional funding like the Nashed Family Scholarship, which she won this year. Without such generous support from PUC donors, her college ambitions would be in serious jeopardy. “The rest is up to God,” she says.

But as long as she has the opportunity, Jassy plans to keep balancing school, art, volunteerism, and hard work—and to keep making it look beautiful.