David Legrand ’23 discovered his passion for art serendipitously when, at the age of 21, he enrolled in HUEH (part of the State University of Haiti) as a sociology major. David recalls doodling during lectures. He drew his classmates’ faces and hands, his professors, and whatever captured his roving attention.

“I don’t remember what the title of that class was,” he admits. “I never paid attention because I was putting more attention into what I was doing.”

His pencil sketches elicited positive feedback, and even his professor suggested that he consider pursuing art.

Fast forward eight years to today: David graduated in 2023 with a BFA from the Cornell College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, and he’s a second-year MFA student at the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). He received generous scholarship assistance from Cornell, which enabled him to attend and pursue his artistic dreams. After graduation, David won a highly competitive full scholarship to RISD as a Presidential Fellow, a program to recruit RISD’s “most sought-after students.”

David is now preparing for his first solo exhibition in Basel, Switzerland, in 2025, and his professors believe he has a bright future ahead as a world-class artist.

Getting serious about education

David was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1995. His mother was an elementary school teacher there, and David was one of three siblings.

He explains that there were few opportunities for artists in Haiti.

“From what I observed, the market was small, almost non-existent, and for the most part controlled by a few well-known figures,” he says.

David determined that if he was going to pursue a career in art, he would be better served pursuing his education internationally. His grandmother had been living in the US for 29 years, and in 2017, she was able to bring David’s family to join her in Adelphi, Maryland.

When David looked into art schools in the US, he realized that he was missing some of the key requirements. He didn’t have a track record of academic coursework, nor did he have a body of artwork to show prospective schools.

“I made up my mind to start taking some art classes, so I could meet the credit requirements to apply to art school,” David says. “And, I started taking art seriously.”

“Clothing is more than mere fabric; it is a powerful medium through which individuals express their identities, values, and worldviews. This phenomenon, known as enclothed cognition, reveals how the symbolic significance of clothes affects our cognitive functions, influencing how others perceive and interact with us. Thus, clothing can be a significant tool for building social connections and sending personal messages without the necessity for vocal communication.” —David Legrand ’23

In the fall of 2018, David enrolled at Montgomery Community College, where he spent the next year taking art classes, along with classes in English and another sociology class. To his surprise, this time he found that he was genuinely interested in his liberal arts classes.

He won a prize for an essay he wrote for his English class, and his sociology professor remarked on the quality of his writing. This professor encouraged David to consider attending a university where he could continue to hone his critical thinking and writing skills, in addition to his art skills.

“At an art school, there’s a limit on what you can do and what classes you can take,” David observes. “At a university, even though you’re taking art classes, you can still expand your interests into other fields.”

David turned this advice over in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his interests extended beyond art to languages, history, philosophy, and more. When it came time to apply to schools, he added Cornell to his list.

Receiving the big envelope

When David began the application process in the fall of 2019, he had no inkling that a global pandemic would soon be disrupting nearly every aspect of life. When it came time for him to submit his required teacher recommendations to Cornell, he was unable to contact his professors because the community college had shut down. He decided to take a chance and submit his Cornell application without them.

As he waited for his college decision letters, he came to understand more about Cornell.

He remembers the exact date when his mom told him he had received a large envelope in the mail from Cornell: June 11, 2020. He opened the envelope and realized that he had been accepted. His mother started crying. He shared the news with his cousin in Haiti.

“I told her, I got into Cornell. And she was going crazy over the phone. She took a screenshot of it,” David recalls. “It was a big deal!”

David still has his original acceptance letter, and he remembers the size and shape of the envelope it came in.

“Even the way the letter was wrapped stood out to me. It was different from all the other [acceptance letters]. The other ones had a letter-size envelope, but Cornell’s was a big envelope.”

His admission included generous grant aid. When David submitted his family’s financial documents, he was overjoyed to learn that he could attend without taking loans or putting a burden on his family.

“I didn’t really understand much about grants,” he says, “but once I saw that the family contribution was like zero, I was like, ‘Wait, what?!’”

Growing the practice of art

David arrived at Cornell as a second-year transfer student in the fall of 2020. It was the first time he had seen the campus. He remembers putting his things down in his dorm room and heading out to explore. He was struck immediately by the size and beauty of the place.

“I didn’t really know the extent of how selective Cornell was until I got there,” he explains.

He took full advantage of the opportunity to take classes both in and beyond the art studio. During his Cornell career, David took classes in philosophy, photography, Southeast Asian studies, Finnish language (which he loved), comic books, and English.

His professors encouraged him to reflect on what he was reading and enter into conversation about the choices a writer makes—from how they lay out the words on the page to why they choose the words they use.

“In one class, we took an almost musical approach to writing, by incorporating big white spaces in the text or breaking it down so it was more like art on the page,” he says. “To this day, I’m still thinking about that in my work.”

“Our history profoundly shapes how we dress and relate to fashion today. This historical context informs our efforts to transcend imposed limitations and become creators of our narratives. We aim to establish ownership over our identities and influence how others perceive us.” —David Legrand ’23

David says he’s “100% sure” he made the right decision to pursue a Cornell education for his undergraduate degree.

“Cornell helped me shape the way that I talk about my art, the way that I write about it, and even the way that I think about it,” David says. “My perspective is more expansive because of the Southeast Asian class, or the English class, or the comic book class that I took. The ways that we talked about what we were learning helped me build the vocabulary to talk about my work now. That was one aspect of going to university that I really loved.”

David generally avoids calling himself an artist. He sees making art as a process through which he engages with the world around him, with an attitude of openness, playfulness, and curiosity.

“Art is a learning process,” David explains. “It’s the way that I observe my environment, absorb what’s there, and let it appear in my work. So, the way that I look at things and what I’m reading feed into my art. It’s not a title—it’s an attitude.”