It's been four days since the final quarter of my sophomore year ended and I finally feel relaxed enough to make a post about the entire year in review. I'm sitting on my girlfriend's couch surrounded by three cats, with a fan blowing full blast (thanks Georgia summer) and an ice cold bottle of water next to me. It's a very quick turn around from a couple of days ago when I was hunched over a printmaking table desperately trying to push ink into the burrows of a copper plate, running back and forth between that and the painting studio where I was willing paint to dry faster than physically possible.
This year was ultimately a very good one for me. From where I'd sit I'd say freshman year was the hardest. I missed my home, I was going through it, my friends were going through it, and the distance from everything that had been so familiar for 20 years of my life was extremely heavy on me at all times. But I came into my sophomore year a little more experienced and a little more prepared. I had my ups and downs of course but in the end I'm much happier.
I started my painting classes in the fall which was probably a huge benefactor. My freshman year I had to take all foundations courses, despite having gotten a lot of the credits from my AP classes in high school (don't ask me why I didn't receive those credits. We're still working on that). I learned very quickly that design classes were the bane of my existence and giving 105% in my drawing classes didn't leave me with a lot of energy for the rest of my schedule. It was a year of learning to balance things and I'd say I'm still probably working on that. But finally getting to explore the major that had given me a lot of apprehension (everybody wants to know what exactly you're going to do with a painting major) (paint.) since switching from illustration halfway through my freshman year, was like lifting a very very very heavy weight off my shoulders. My friend from home who came to SCAD with me as an illustration major was originally hurt to see me ditching him and our future as illustrators together for painting, said I seemed much happier and right at home up in the painting department. It also helped having constant support from my painting professor and parents over the year.
I can't say if the body of work I put out over this year versus last year is better. My work as of late is definitely more "me". As my painting professor says, I've taken ownership over my work. I did a lot of experimenting which led to immense growth in my creativity, but ultimately I'm still working at the medium. I learned more about painting with acrylics and oils in a couple months than I had in years, but there's still so much more to explore.
Now I can compare my work from the beginning to the year to the end and definitely say my work is better. It's just entirely different from what I was doing last year. But over the year I clearly became more confident in the expression of my ideas and my experimentation with the media and I feel happy with whatever direction my art is going in. I have a vague idea. But my professors always say to discover the painting as we're working. And I feel like that's what I'm doing.
Outside of my painting classes I took a lot of art history and when I wasn't taking an art history class I was up in the library looking at art history books or books on painters or printmakers or sculptors. I always knew the library was up there, of course, but this year I really discovered it as a nice place to hang out, listen to some nice music, and stock up on a ton of inspirational resources, while also not being bothered by the regular hustle of the busy school. The highlight of my year was probably finding a book on the entire art history of Colombia, though I never got to read it. I know where it is and I'm going back to get it as soon as I return in the fall.
I also took a Computer Arts class which sucked. Just flat out sucked. If you have any experience with computers at all just save yourself and take the advanced class and actually learn something. In CMPA I we were taught how to open up Microsoft Word and change the font. Seriously.
Aside from that, I took Life Drawing I and Printmaking for Non-Majors which were both extremely beneficial and fun classes. Life Drawing changed not only the way I drew the figure but also the way I looked at the figure and the rest of the world around me. It sounds corny to say but drawing from life will always change the way you look at things. It also felt good to pick up a pencil to draw again. I hadn't taken a drawing class in about seven months and hadn't drawn much in between. I was a little rusty no doubt. Printmaking was an entirely different beast. I had done linoleum prints in high school but even then they were simple and basic. This class really made me appreciate all the work that went into prints. I guess something about the replication of it, the fact that you could make so many copies of a print once it was done made it seem like a quick and somewhat easy process, though I knew that wasn't really true. But there's hours and hours and days of labor that goes into making a print that really makes the final result so worth it. The duplicative nature didn't make it easier at all, in fact that's what makes printmaking so intense. But it's a very rewarding process and while the work I turned out might not be great I'm still proud of the work I put in. It was definitely a balancing act.
Outside of academics I just grew a lot this year. I gained a lot more independence. I got comfortable going to events alone. I went to my first concert by myself and got used to walking around the city more alone (though still with caution of course). I'm overall a lot more sure of myself and my decisions. I just made a somewhat spontaneous decision to join a girl's creative trip to Cartagena, Colombia (<3333) with My Closet Etc. and I'm so incredibly excited. I have family members that go back every year but in my 21 years I've never gotten to visit. So I'm going to work extra hard this summer to make the money and take my own butt to visit The Homeland.
I've got a lot of traveling planned this summer, which is weird for me, but I'm not going to let it get in the way of making art and growing more. I'm gonna brush up on my digital art and make more collages and I've also got my dad prepared to help me build some canvases this summer so maybe I can start working larger.
I have two vlogs I started filming during the final month of finals which hopefully I'll edit to be cohesive and get up on YouTube. I want to make a lot of videos to document my journey and life as an artist to add to here. I've got a lot of plans for the future and I couldn't be more excited.
