Art is the one area that I will actually permit myself to say that I am decent at. Of course, that is only a opinion, like all art forms, some will hate and others will love the way you express your ideas.
I didn't even know that I was able to compose the space on a canvas or use color theory to bring to life the thin pencil outlines I create on paper until last year. Ever since I applied to a technical school as a commercial art major, in my old town in New Jersey, I guess fate has been pushing me towards paint brushes and charcoal. After moving to New Paltz, a cute little hippy town with gorgeous street art, where I was placed in a stupid creative crafts class I took a step back to see that my life was heading in an artistic direction. I decided to drop out of the boredom and humidity of band class and join a drawing and painting class. I decided my life was going in an artistic direction anyway so I might as well go along with it. I was set on dropping all my other goals, and move towards an artist's life.
It is now May 23 and I wish I would have taken physics instead of computer graphics this year. My hardwood floor is covered with deep blue paint and there are stacks of 18 by 24 inch unfinished canvases piled in the corner, like I need anything else to remind me that my art portfolio is due next week.
I keep flipping through the pages of my journal to figure out just when I turned into the girl that barley shows up to school, is missing work in AP Lit, and no longer finds joy in the grainy texture of charcoal on her fingers.
Yesterday, was the first time I read a book not assigned for school. It's Warm Bodies. I finished it.
I just want to go back to the blonde who willingly stays up until four in the morning to perfect her chiaroscuro art piece and has a panic attack about every quiz in history class which she does well on anyway. I want to look forward to Calc class and spend my Saturday mornings studying for the next AP test or SATs. I want to stop suffocating under unfinished essays, tests I haven't taken, and blank watercolor paper. I want to breathe.
I want to blame my state on the fact that I've been fighting the urge to sleep for fourteen hours a day due to mononucleosis. Sadly, when I apply to a Boston school they won't care. I will just be another number, one lower than the one I set up in my preceding years. I guess I might as well be an artist at this point, because medical school is a dream lost in my 96 GPA of sophomore year.
btw: this is the book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warm_Bodies
Just beautiful and genuine, Maggie. This writing will make them care! This is the exact purpose of the college essay! Your voice is true and the imagery...well...I am without words. And that really says something!
ReplyDeleteYou really opened up in this Maggie and I definitely understand other sides of you that I didn't before. You're very emotionally reclusive and I resonate with this, because I am too. I feel the struggles of being a "smart" artist, buried under other school work and lack of artistic purpose. I really struggle, trying to create art that is both interesting to me, and appreciated by society. This year I realized the reason why I put my art on facebook, because every like I got I subconsciously felt validated by society. This revolted me. Yet I continued to post my work. This has been a conflict I have been struggling with for some time, weather I make art because I enjoy it, or that I make art to validate myself in the eyes of society.
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