This week will be my last at the LU. This is strangely scary to me because it's what I've devoted 90% of my time to since January and I don't know what the L I'll be doing afterwards. Something may have come up as far as teaching a few weeks during the summer so that will be good cash to have. Oh, and experience.
I've worked my butt off this semester but wish I had more art to show for it. Sometimes there just aren't enough hours in the day. Or in the case of welding, sometimes there isn't enough light in a day. I'll miss the days of coming home late in the evening and watching black welding dirt spiral into the drain when I shower. I will also miss the humor that ensues when wearing my boots, dirty jeans, and "butch" shirts out in public and people giving me strange looks. Like I've said before, there's nothing quite like tangible signs of hard work.
Another scary part about leaving for the summer is that my routine will be changed and I will not be accessible to tools for sculpting. This will limit me as far as welding but it could bring about creation in new media. I've been following the art of Kiki Smith and I'd like to try casting; That is something I could do without being in the workshop. I've also got a few sketches in mind for some drawings or prints. Which means I'll also need to teach myself some printmaking since my professor in undergrad didn't really do the whole teaching thing. IV and I started some screenprinting a few weeks ago but haven't gotten around to finishing it.
Going back to Kiki Smith, I'm in love with her ability to make a piece of art and adamantly say how the interpretation is different from how she intended it for herself and how the viewer views it. ("Viewer views it"-really?) That's important to note because often times I think people (myself included) try so hard to get a point across that it just becomes so uninterestingly obvious. This semester I've kind of been dealing with how to juggle what message (if any) I'm trying to evoke through my art yet doing it in a slighter, less discernable way. Smith's tones and themes are a lot darker than anything I've ever done, mostly because nothing too dark or terrible has happened in my life. That being said, I do have these mean red areas that should probably be confronted through my art. But maybe I just don't want to bum anyone out (myself included).
Next week will be my last week of teaching at PTC. Honestly, I wish it wasn't over because I've enjoyed it so much. There have been a couple issues that I didn't know how to handle because I've never been in this sort of teaching situation before but I've learned from them. The students (minus one or two) have been great and so enthusiastic. They will be remembered and missed.
It's kind of funny. I stopped the MAT program because I realized I really didn't want to teach in public schools. Since then I've taught at PTC (community college) and may be teaching at a nonprofit, outreach sort of place. It's like God has said, "I'll meet you half way and give you non-public schools, but you are still supposed to teach." Which has been fine my me.
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