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Marrissa
Curry
“Before the Clubhouse, I was
really shy but now that I’m used to being around people I’m
a lot more open,” says Marissa Curry, 17. For as long as she can
remember, she’s been interested in art but the Clubhouse ignited
her passion for drawing. Growing up in Boston’s Roxbury-South End,
Curry
came to the Clubhouse in 2000 to work on a film project for school. Now,
a senior at Boston’s John D. O’Bryant School of Mathematics
and Science, she says her latest work is “my favorite. I can see
how I have improved. The biggest challenge is getting ideas. I go for
weeks not drawing anything. Then I whip out a pencil and start drawing.
I combine sketching, scanning, and digital manipulation.”
Curry created the image for the Clubhouse 10th
anniversary invitation and has helped design a menu and business cards
for her mother’s new 
Thai
restaurant. While she has a computer at home, at the Clubhouse, Curry
has mastered the Adobe Photoshop and Premiere video-editing programs that
enable her to do sophisticated graphic designs and create videos. “I
draw, then I give life to the drawings with Photoshop. At home it can
be boring. I have come to the Clubhouse to do my artwork. It’s fun,”
says Curry, who’s working on a video that includes all her work.
”What I have learned at the Clubhouse has helped me at school too.
I designed a cover page for a book we were reading in English class and
a comic strip for history depicting a battle between white settlers and
native Americans.”
Curry also has made friends at the Clubhouse, and as a Girls Day youth mentor, she says, “I help kids out if they need it.” In July 2003, she went to New Zealand and Australia in the Student Ambassador People to People cultural exchange program.
She plans to finish high school and then go to college. The Clubhouse has widened her horizons. She’s interested in audio and film production and media arts. “I like entertainment. I’d like to run my own record label, open a restaurant or club, have a clothing line where the profits go to charity and of course have a family. But I don’t want to plan too much so I can’t disappoint myself.
