When Chryslyn Perkins ’22 first stepped on Trinity’s campus, she had no idea where her next four years would take her.
Perkins was awarded the Baker Duncan Art Scholarship as an incoming first-year. This competitive, merit-based, and renewable scholarship is offered to exceptional students majoring in studio art. Perkins is grateful for the financial support the scholarship gave her: “This scholarship has given me the ability to explore all kinds of different art forms, which is one of the best things I've been able to do.”
Coming from the small town of Decatur, Texas, Perkins had primarily been exposed to painting in high school. Now, as a senior double major in business and art, she is a self-proclaimed dabbler.
“I do all kinds of things,” Perkins says. “I love photography. I love painting. I love screen printing. As long as I'm creating something, I'm happy.”
While her love for creation started as a child, she discovered a love for business as a Trinity first-year. “I was talking to one of my friends about how I had always had this dream of opening up an art gallery for people with special needs,” Perkins says. “He told me, ‘Get into the entrepreneurship program and take a class.’”
In “Intro to Entrepreneurship” with professor Luis Martinez ’91, Ph.D., her dream to start a gallery morphed into an idea to bring art projects to the San Antonio community. She began developing her venture by researching locally, connecting with the Down Syndrome Association of South Texas and the local chapter of The Arc, a national organization protecting the rights of people with intellectual disabilities. “We started interviewing people in the community to figure out where the need actually is,” Perkins says. “We wanted to make art as accessible as possible for everyone.”
Perkins and her classmates made a minimum viable product that they brought to these organizations. She explains: “We turned the starry night painting into a marble maze. You can trace the marble through the painting so that you can see how van Gogh created movement in the piece.”
This product was further developed during the Stumberg Accelerator, a rigorous summer program for student start-ups held by Trinity’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Perkins’ team placed as finalists in the Stumberg Competition. She explains that it was this experience that motivated her to pursue a major in business in addition to art: “When I came to Trinity, I realized lots of people double major. That's definitely something you can do here.”
heARTful was named as a Stumberg Finalist during the seed round of the Stumberg Competition in Spring 2019.
In the past year, Perkins has utilized her diverse skillset to make an impact off-campus. “I’ve had several internships that combined the art and business side of things,” she says. Her most recent position as marketing manager at Beyond Education, an academic success organization, placed her at the intersection of art and business. “I was doing pretty much all of their digital marketing, from social media to email campaigns. This was a super valuable experience because I had to learn how to do it on my own, and I loved it.”
Now, Perkins is focusing on her future career. She is working towards her Google UX Design Certification. A user experience designer focuses on the interaction between individual and product in order to provide a meaningful experience to the user. Perkins hopes a career in design will allow her to catalyze human connection. “I’m most passionate about using art and design to bring people together,” she says. “I want to give people the opportunity to connect with one another and explore their passions.”
Perkins’ advice to incoming first-years unsure about their next step is simple: “Pursue what you love and everything else will follow.”
She remembers, “I came into Trinity passionate about what I thought I was going to do, and that’s not where I ended up, but I just kept following my passions and remained open to the opportunities that came my way.”
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