Surviving Art School:
For this first blogging post, I wanted to communicate something I knew. A concept that was relevant while still engaging with everything I’ve learnt throughout University. Whether I’ve hit the mark with that, only time will tell. After long nights writing and researching for my dissertation, the release from completing it was almost underwhelming. I thought ‘finalmente, I’ve done it !’, though there was this strange atmosphere of my hard work not amounting to anything. I’ve since swung between wanting to edit and publish it, to thinking it instead should be deserted in a cold dark room left to think about it’s actions; but alas blogging was suggested, and this seems like perfect time and place to start. That now is the time to be brave.
What is art?
and how does your perspective set the limits for what is true.
I, much like many other women, struggle with a sense of impostor syndrome; the belief that no matter what i do, or how well i do it, I can never truly feel accomplished. This often sets me back with starting, continuing, and sometimes even finishing projects. I always try to keep this under control and limit the unfinished projects for personnel side hustles but it’s everywhere! It follows me into the kitchen, to the library or more plainly, through the creation of my art.
This constant ticking of my brain working against itself is something I’ve had to learn to live with as I’ve grown up. It’s looking to my friends and family for true reassurance, it’s remembering that my story isn’t something to compare in exchange for validation but a journey I should instead support and nourish. A way I’ve managed to work alongside this is through small steps everyday. It’s cliche but it’s also no joke! I’ve felt it myself. I’ve felt the ground move with the efforts of my past, leading me to the position or opportunity I’m in and I always feel a strange air in its moment. An unfamiliar feeling of both the universe working its magic but also the most mindful part being; I was able to create and make something happen. That I, myself and anyone else, have the capabilities of creating a little life that they can feel proud to enjoy and live.
A great experience at art school has been dealing with and enduring lecture criticism, although not always as un-serious as the next. The vast majority has felt misguided and not 9k worth of bespoke and guided content. For whatever these reasons might be however, it’s out of my hands and not what I’m hear to focus on. I instead would rather give back any advice or rational critique in hopes it could potentially help the next.
“Art is subjective beauty” was my opening sentence for a patchwork text examining What is Art? and still I believe it somewhat packs a punch. Unfinished, yes. But it’s the first sentence and we often must practice patience when demanding abstract answers…
The criticism being this is wrong however, has only followed me around. It made me question how such a short sentence that embodies an essence of subjectivity, can be so intrinsically wrong. By aligning too ‘romantically’ I had been simply ‘wrong’.
I suddenly felt bad for all the romantics that lived before me and also defined their experience of art as such, as they all too must have experienced and lived a lie outside of reality; interesting once put into perspective. I believe University is supposed to challenge and critique, of course. However, after sitting with this, pondering it, and even as it sometimes would cross my mind while appreciating art, I can only defend and reassure myself that the meaning of art is somewhat subjective itself. It’s abstract. It is felt and draws upon individual experiences. It’s authentic, it’s human and I’m unsure how anyone can ever truly define what art is. In one sentence at least.
To quote Banksy,
‘Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable’
and perhaps it is as simple as that.
Whether I was right or wrong wasn’t however, the most important part of this examination, but is instead a question that involuntarily creeps back into my days; seeking to be answered through a new lens. Admitting to myself that I then must have been missing the crown jewels of my own understanding. Maybe this is exactly what impostor syndrome is. A shadow that pours over you, reminding you that you’re unfinished and your creations have been too.
Maybe art school can be the perfect environment for this to manifest. Marked feedback, competition, and wealth disparity.
Oh how I’ve loved art school.
Though I’d prefer to imagine it as a concept that perhaps lies within the individual and one we find ourselves in. As if the key to understanding what art is, is to fundamentally understand yourself and how this reflection morphs and changes much like we do ourselves.
Be kind to yourself and practice patience.
The stars have already seen our future and we must
