…
Well. A lot of things happened this time around. In no particular order…
1) Young Artists at Work
After almost 8 full months of work, we went through a less-than-two-hour graduation ceremony, setting up a select few prints, taking our laptops and certificates, and it was over. No more BARTing to San Francisco right after school.
The program was not at all what I expected, when Connie and I first applied together. What we were expecting was intensive painting and drawing using traditional media. Instead, for 8 months we never so much as touched a paintbrush to a palette - in fact, the one time we experimented with brushes, we combed the studio from ceiling to floor and didn’t find a single one. Instead of drawing pencils, we put carving knives to linoleum. In place of paint, we used printing inks. We drew the pictures, but that wasn’t enough, the pictures needed to go onto transparencies and onto emulsified screens. The picture could be wonderful, but if the transparency wasn’t inked on dark enough, or if the screen didn’t burn for just the right amount of time, the product was useless, and we’d scrub it down and start from square one.
There were a number of rocky spots down the road. The fact that we ended the 8 months with no films to show was surprising and disappointing. We started the program thinking that by the end everyone would have at least two big filming activism projects, and instead, I can count on one hand the total number of times we so much as touched the cameras. One of my best memories of this class is when we had a visiting poet for a substitute teacher, who simply set us loose with cameras for the whole day. We filmed some fantastic segments in the gardens, and took delight in creating the elements and watching them unfold.
Likewise, Visual Arts was very slow-paced. I felt like we accomplished a tiny fraction of what we could have during our time in the studio, simply because the things that should have taken very little time were dragged out over weeks and weeks, and in some cases, months. With no pressure, no due date looming over us, there was a severe lack of motivation in the studio. It wasn’t until just a week or two ago when graduation day began to sneak up on us that we finally got a move on.
On the bright side? Printing was never a form of art that I’d considered. Given a free leash to design on my own, it was never even something I would have thought of. But to be faced with something entirely new where you can apply your own strengths and style is, to an artist, thrilling. Like A to B, new tools gave me new ideas, new motivation to change my style to suit the advantages and disadvantages of printing. Lose the tiny details. Strip it down to the basic elements, only the most important things. Leave only the strongest impressions. Know what will come through the screen. Learn your tools.
2) Museum of Children’s Art
Quite like the program, the summer internship wasn’t anything like I’d imagined. Working in the Museum of Children’s Art had pretty much nothing to do with media activism. The first day was almost unbearably uncomfortable. For the first time, I was working with little kids - keeping an eye on them and getting along with them are two different things entirely.
It got better a little bit at a time, first getting to know the kids, and then sitting down to help them with their art projects. I may not have been teaching them, like my YAAW instructors had been expecting, but nonetheless my time there was a surprising step forward. Most of the kids looked up to us almost unconditionally, and I guess that, plus a genuine desire to get along with them, spurred me into putting effort into my job. Our biggest artistic jobs were just to sit down once or twice and help a four-year-old glue something onto a potato-head, or to shred construction paper and blend it into pulp. But in between, you talk to the kids, what are you doing, do you want some help?, hold their hand when we cross the street, play tag with them, clean up after their tissue paper extravaganza, make example projects for them, let them sit in your lap on the bus, and then ruffle their hair in surprise when they run up to you and hug you just because they feel like it.
I also made some friends among the other apprentices there. We had a great time together, learning how to act around these little bundles of energy, and occasionally going crazy ourselves, like we were little kids again with scissors and stacks of construction paper.
.-.-.-.-.
I feel like this summer, I’ve made a huge leap in independence, venturing out much farther than I ever have on my own. It was a long time ago when I had to keep my nose pressed to my map, terrified of getting lost in the unfamiliar town of Berkeley. Since then, each development has come faster and faster - venturing out during the lunch hour with TIC, exploring downtown San Francisco with Connie, taking BART as far as Hayward, busing for the first time without an adult’s guidance, then planning my own bus route which I would take alone, and, only two days ago, successfully finding my way back on public transportation from the Exploratorium. Not only that, for the first time I was working at a paying job, and the money was mine to save or spend as I wanted. I was free to venture out on my own, knowing how to get there and back on my own knowledge.
Just a couple of months ago, I was alarmed by the idea of me and Connie having to walk more than four blocks alone in the city.
I thought I was going to cover a few more recent events, but it’s almost 3 and I’ve pretty much exhausted my YAAW topic. It’s over now, and I got a lot out of it, but I’m happy to be back to my life.
I’ve been downloading programs like crazy all night on my laptop. I hope I haven’t broken it already ._.” That would suck. But at least it came with a really cool carrying case.
Orientation tomorrow (later today).