Falan Francis is a third-year art major with Fibers and Pottery concentrations, as well as a minor in American Sign Language. She is from a small town in central Pennsylvania and came to Colorado State University in hopes of experiencing a new environment and gaining new perspectives as a first-generation college student. Falan plans on attending graduate school to earn her master’s in Fibers and/or Pottery and hopes to become a professor and have a small business.

“To me, acknowledging the existence of negativity and uncomfortable topics is essential in coping and working with these themes can allow us to connect with others while also straying away from the idea that art can’t be so if it is dirty, inappropriate, or hard to deal with. I intend to spend my career bringing back originality and purposeful and innovative design into commercial business and creating art for therapeutic purposes. I would like to be involved in community wide projects that benefit those who need support and a creative outlet but cannot access the resources easily. From an early age, I have used art to heal and understand myself and the world around me as it was difficult to communicate with the people effectively in my life. Inspired by abject art, I have often worked with themes concerning living as a minority in suburbia and healing through pain and its direct relationship with growth. Much of my independent work emphasizes my personal values of diversity in life, and within chosen media, as well as using humor and dark themes to cope with pain and fear.”