Adria Chilcote was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. She also grew up there except for a year when she went to Kindergarten in Florence, Alabama (where she fell head over heels in love with reading) and three years of transition into adolescence on a hog farm in Sutton, Nebraska.
She started her college career in English and Women's Studies at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. Determined to see more of the world, she relocated after a few years to beautiful Bellingham, Washington. While gaining residency in the state, she pursued sculpture and functional pottery at two different studios. In 2001 she started school at Whatcom Community College where she learned how to draw and discovered something called graphic design.
Still curious about other parts of the world, she traveled during this time to South Korea to live with a family of potters in the mountains of Georyonsan National Park. There she learned about traditional Korean ceramics in contemporary life, and spent time traveling the country and pursuing one more passion, photography. Later that year she also went to live for a few months in Florence, Italy where she studied Italian language, and completed an independent study of Renaissance art history.
While finishing the graphic design program in community college back in Washington, she realized that there was too much to learn in one year. She thought a "real" art school might be able to teach her more about this. She discovered online, applied and was accepted to MCAD, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. She bought an old Toyota pickup, loaded it up with as many of her belongings as would fit, along with her little cat, and drove to a city she'd never been in to go to a school she'd never seen. This has worked out for her and she has recently completed her BFA in Graphic Design.
During her time at MCAD, she has discovered that graphic design is everything (or just about). It pulls so many things into its service that she loves: collage, photography, drawing, books, culture, analytical and organizational aspects of her personality that have informed her writing, her curiosity about the world and everything in it, and so much more. It has changed her life. She is excited to see where her passion for graphic design will lead her next. Still not finished exploring the world, she is currently seeing what she can find in Berlin, Germany.
