By Austin Post
ROME, Ga. – First-year Berry volleyball player Christina Goforth may be an aggressive outside hitter on the court, but outside the lines she finds her true identity as an artist.
Art is something that Christina Goforth said has captivated her since childhood. At age 6, she began drawing as a way to connect with her father, who was an art major at UNC Charlotte. In fact, she described her entire family as artistic.
“My Dad always encouraged me to try out art when I was little,” said Goforth, an all-state volleyball player from Covenant Day School in Matthews, N.C.
She participated in and even won an art contest in the 1st grade that, she says, set her dream in motion.
“I just remember being so happy,” Goforth said. “From then on, when people asked what I wanted to do when I got older, I responded with, ‘I wanna be an artist when I grow up.’”
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Berry volleyballer Christina Goforth said her art is the result
of hard work and “a lot of patience.”
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Her winning entry was of a mountain lion.
“I loved mountain lions, and I spent so much time on the drawing, that my teacher got mad at me,” Goforth said.
Art as release
Goforth said she looks to art as an opportunity to get away from the pressures of school and relax. When she is engrossed in a piece of art, she says everything else seems to fade away.
“More so than volleyball, art is a stress reliever for me,” said Goforth, an exercise science major at Berry. “It gives me something to focus all of my energy on.”
Her high school coach, Heather Mills, attributed her composure to the calming effect that art has on her.
“In matches, she was always the level-headed leader on the court,” said Mills, who coached Goforth’s volleyball teams in 2013 and 2014 that each made the state finals. “That’s something every coach hopes to have on their team.”
Art is an outlet that allows her to have full control, and she credits much of her passion for art to the satisfaction that she gets from completing a piece.
Though it might sound “so cheesy,” Goforth said, “the sense of accomplishment you get from finishing a piece that you’ve been working on for so long is worth it all.
The future
Goforth says she plans to switch her major to art education and to submit some of her work to Ramifications, Berry’s literary and arts magazine.
Longer term, she said she plans to become a high school art teacher so perhaps she can impact students’ lives as her teachers impacted hers. Eventually she wants to open her own art studio.
“Christina is an incredibly driven young woman,” said her coach at Berry, Mika Robinson. “She will undoubtedly do well in whatever she does.”
For now, Robinson hopes Goforth builds on her high school success. She amassed more than 1,000 kills and 1,000 digs in high school. Through 15 matches at Berry, she is averaging roughly two kills and two digs per game.