Even before she took her first AP Studio Art class at Apollo High School, Vivian had started sending out her portfolio to the colleges to which she was applying. In thinking about strategies to make her pieces stand out among the many other submissions, Vivian came up with the idea of creating still lifes of "visual puns." These pieces would accomplish her goal of being different and, at the same time, put a twist on her requirement to create pieces drawn from observation. She developed a list of projects with her teacher Ms. Barbara Landau. Vivian fondly refers to her as one of her "heroes," a teacher who constantly encourages all her students. "She gets very involved with students and really helps them concentrate on learning as much as possible in the AP program." Ms. Landau encouraged many of the students in Apollo's art program to submit work to local shows. Some of Vivian's work was chosen for display at the Arizona State Fair and the Maricopa County Fair. In addition, a paper mosaic and another one of her visual pun pastels, "Coffee House," were displayed at the Sun City Art Museum.

Vivian has long had an interest in art – mostly with "Saturday-morning-type" cartoons. "I like the bubbly type and the surrealism and exaggeration involved in this style of cartooning. It's a nice release," says Vivian. She lent her creative talents to her high school newspaper, The Utopian, with editorial cartoons as well. During June 1997, the summer before her senior year, Vivian traveled to Colorado Springs to study with various artists in residence at the invitation-only Marie Walsh Sharp Art Foundation Summer Seminar. It was here that Vivian met and studied with Janet Fish, one of her favorite artists to date and a great source of inspiration. After working with her for that short time, Vivian felt better prepared to tackle the challenges of AP and was able to emulate Janet's style of lighting in many of her pieces.

Vivian is now a student at the Kansas City Art Institute where she is taking classes that are part of the first-year art foundation program. After her freshman year, she will need to declare her major. At this point Vivian is considering design, illustration, and traditional animation. Ideally, she would like to take her love of cartoons and turn it into a career in traditional animation. Says Vivian, "I love the idea that a pen can become an actor and that through a simple drawing one can create movement." Vivian herself is clearly on the move; keep your eyes open for her work in future comic strips and on the silver screen!