The Ridge Alumni Memorial Scholarship selection committee has named RHS senior Emily Brenner recipient of the 2015 Ridge Alumni Memorial Scholarship, a $10,000 grant. A gifted artist, Emily will carry her creativity to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design this fall. Congratulations to Emily!

Following is Emily’s compelling application essay:

Shtick is the Yiddish word for “weird habit”. I am a young woman who has multiple “shticks”, for I have always blinked, kicked, jerked and occasionally even snorted. These shticks first appeared when I was three years old and each would come and go after brief periods. My friends noticed but didn’t care (they knew to sit to my right during lunch or else be kicked by a leg with “a mind of its own”). I did well in school and life went on.

I’ve always had a passion for painting, sketching, and expressing my emotions through the visual arts. I consider myself a very artistic and imaginative person, though I’ve had to manage a significant challenge in my life while trying to express this creativity. My once relatively innocuous shticks were seizing greater control of my body and mind as I entered into high school. Rather than dissipate, they lingered longer and longer. I started to tap a finger; however, the taps started multiplying faster and faster until the action monopolized my thoughts. Tap. Tap. Tap. I became distracted in school and at home. Tap. Tap. Tap. My finger bruised and calloused. Tap. Tap. Tap. I couldn’t stop.

A visit to the doctor diagnosed not only Tourette Syndrome but even more disconcerting, an undercurrent of OCD tendencies which strangled my thoughts and dictated my everyday routine. With the aid of my very supportive parents, I began researching this often misunderstood and stigmatized disorder. The neurologist armed me with klonopin, a numbing narcotic. With the endorsement of my parents, I tore the prescription up as soon as I left the office. I was determined to combat this diagnosis on my own terms with a lucid mind and a clear strategy. Although controlling the manifestations of TS and OCD can be a formidable challenge, over time I realized that my physical tics were muted while painting and drawing.

Art serves as both an escape and a catharsis. When I paint, I channel my anxiety, frustration, excitement and emotion into my artwork. As my talents developed, I realized that my mind is completely focused on line, texture, shadow and form. Art developed into an escape, where I had the unabated freedom to express myself without being stymied by the hindering effects of TS. However, like an electric charge that needs to be released, the urge is never completely dormant. My canvas reflects this struggle. I grew a passion for chiaroscuro or the use of high contrast. Form is never completely encapsulated by line. An exaggerated level of focus on the subject in my paintings fulfills my artistic cravings in a way which also quells my involuntary physical twitches.

Even after years of behavioral therapy, which has helped me become nearly tic-free, this disorder will always be with me. Despite the occasional blink, kick, and twitch, expressing myself through art has allowed me to grow as a person and an artist, while helping me gain control over the effects of all my crazy little “shticks”. I recently painted a canvas of a young woman holding a pair of scissors. The blades frame her eye and are poised to shut on her eyelashes. The image is unsettling as I wanted to arouse in the viewer the anxiety I experience when coping with OCD. However, upon closer inspection, the viewer realizes that the hand holding the scissors and the scissor’s handle are not visible. The long silver blades trail to the edge of the canvas and then disappear, literally “cut off” from the mechanism which can cause the blades to open and close. She is safe. Likewise, while I will always have TS and OCD, I have learned how to manage the syndrome so that it neither defines nor hinders my potential.

Looking back over several years of struggle, I found that art was my way to break free.