I quickly found that out when I attended college for the
first time. It was a knock-off,
over-priced art school where I would be educated in ‘Graphic Design’. There were two things that they, the head
teachers of the school that screened future students, were interested in: Artwork and money. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Right around those last couple weeks of my Senior year – the
ones where you just stop caring and kick back with a smug expression on your
face because you’ve done the math and you know that you don’t have to turn in
any more homework and you can still pass all your classes with a C+ – there
were some after-school college fairs set up in the school gym. Ours looked like a slightly more polished
Science fair. Every table had tri-folded
posters glued with information, a bowl full of key chains or lanyards, and
matching pamphlets spread in a fan pattern.
Of course I was only there to scope out what was going to be offered,
and coupled with my outlandish ideas of how college was going to be, I didn’t
think I would be so quickly reeled in.
It wasn’t by any big name university either. While so many of the tables of UK and UC were
surrounded by dozens of my peers, I was observing from afar. I had an agenda, after all. Was I going to fall into the masses and
choose to be content with the ‘normal’ path?
Or was I going to go with ‘the road less travelled’ and find something
just for me. Since I had that “Special
Snowflake” syndrome, of course I felt like I was capable of going to a
specialized school, custom-tailored to my every fantastical whim that, in my
ever-so-innocent mind, was the answer to all my problems.
I should take this time to briefly note that this was the
time in my life where I was heavily into art, and thus I carried a sketchbook
with me at all times. And I mean at ALL
times. Unless explicitly stated by my
parents, it was my answer to ‘grab your purse’ or ‘put on your shoes’. I never left without it, as well as a good
pink eraser and a mechanical pencil filled with plenty of .05 mm lead. And so armed with my trusty sketchpad and at
least two pencils, I meandered lazily around the small table that held the
representatives for the Art Institutes. Sadly,
this was not in the same vein as the Graphic Design schools that got advertised
on television; rather they seemed like a cheap knock-off. Oh, and by ‘cheap’ I mean ‘soul-suckingly
expensive’. It was a large chunk of
change to attend just one semester, made even more outlandish by the fact that the
entire student body consisted of roughly 30 people.
Regardless, I was hooked from the very moment the rep
started complimenting me on my art work.
The sketchpad I brought with me was opened to a page with a particularly
detailed, shaded drawing, held close to my chest and yet those with a trained
eye could spot it a mile away. Before I
could stop myself, I was taking home the pamphlets, application, and whatever
other little table samples I could gather.
Probably Post-It notes or something.
I announced my desire to enroll into this “Art Institute” to my mother
that evening. I would like to think that
my parents were supportive of me; after all, they paid for the major portion of
my tuition that year. My father had
other plans, and his ultimatum was that I had to obtain my driver’s license if
I was going to attend this school. But
first, we had an appointment to tour the school and speak with the Head
teacher.
Upon arrival, I felt as if I were in a contemporary Art
museum, narrow but pristine hallways lined with perfectly measured frames full
of paintings and different crafts. I was
instructed to bring my portfolio, of which I had no idea how to put together. I didn’t name my drawings, nor did I keep
them safely laminated and separated.
They were all drawn on computer paper, haphazardly thrown into the same
manila folder. Some corners were bent,
some of the more heavily shaded drawings were slightly smeared, but it was all
I had. The teacher, named Sandy*, took a
slow, pensive look through all my work, noting all of their qualities and
strengths, and making sure to throw in a “We can help you improve this part”
every now and then. Strangely enough, it
didn’t occur to 17 year old me that I was being buttered up. Instead I was drawn like a moth to a
flame. A very expensive flame with no
use. But again, I tend to get ahead of
myself.
All summer I practiced driving, and it’s worth mentioning
that I and my family moved 14 hours south from this school I so badly wanted to
be in. It didn’t occur to me that going
back up there would mean living up there, as obvious as it is to any onlooker
with a quart of sense. It never occurred
to me that I wanted to enroll in a college that didn’t have any dorms, and that
I was too poor to rent a place of my own.
Lest we not forget my previous entry in Part One, money was not a
forthcoming issue to me. Back then, I
had nearly no concept of it, sad as it is to type. I was truly living in a bubble my whole life,
and so when this entire incident happened, it was like culture shock. In the end, I felt stubborn and called it ‘dedication’,
and I passed my driving test. And soon
it was the last week in August and my dad and I were making the trip to Cincinnati,
Ohio, with all my belongings packed up.
I was to live with my cousin and her husband in their spare
bedroom. Finally, my dad left his
treasured car with me to use as transportation for school, so long as I took
care of it and maintained it, it was virtually mine.
The days counting down to the first day of class were
maddening, and I was experiencing something very strange. It was homesickness, and yet I was basically
in the same area I had grown up in for the last 7 years. It didn’t take me long to figure out that it
wasn’t only homesickness that I was experiencing, but a wild freedom. This was not necessarily a good thing for a
17-turned-18 year old. I drove around to
pass the time, thinking that I could perhaps learn some of the roads and get
some practice in driving more, because what could that hurt? It didn’t take me long to hit my first
vehicle at a stop light. It was barely a
tap, but the visible shake of the SUV in front of me, accompanied by the driver’s
side door opening and a very pissed off looking man emerging within seconds,
knocking on my window with one hand while his other held a smartphone, left me
in tears. I’m not sure if I had ever been
yelled at by a complete stranger up until then, but I won’t ever forget his
tone of voice and how angry he looked. From
then on I drove with more caution than ever, even on my own driving test.
Unfortunately, getting into scuffs with other drivers wasn’t
my biggest issue on the road. It was
getting lost. I had no smartphone back
then, and wouldn’t have a GPS for another 6 years. I spent afternoons driving endlessly, not
because I wanted to, or because I had extra gas to burn, but because I had no
idea where I was. I would get off exits
and park at gas stations to ask for directions, and I even recall asking a
middle-aged woman how to get back to Fairfield, and she looked at me as if I
had grown another head. Fairfield was
literally one exit away, but I was literally going in circles at that point,
doubting my sense of direction, and for good reason too. I also recall trying to find some kind of
logical way of memorizing the numbered roads around me. “Surely,” I thought to myself, “If 74 leads
to 75 eventually, then 176 will lead to 177 and so on.” With this awful theory in mind, I set out to
test it. 2 hours later, I ended up in
Indiana. But I think the most shameful
part was the fact that I called my mother, who was 800 miles south of me, and
when I told her I was lost, she spent another hour on the phone with me, with
the help of Google Maps, leading me back to my cousin’s house. Overall, driving in general was a
nightmare. I cringe just thinking about
all the gas money wasted and all the needless fear I felt.
Finally, a week had passed and it was time for school to begin. I was finally living the dream. I had all my art supplies ready, packed up in
a big tackle box, and I was ready to prove myself to everyone. Because I wasn't a 2nd year, I had
to park across the 4 lane intersection at Costco, so carrying all my supplies
was a bit unruly. On the first day, I
called my mom to let her know that I had made it to the school in one
piece. I tried throwing in a joke about
landing in a ditch somewhere, but she was not amused. But I digress.
Attendance was taken electronically, by
inputting our personal code. Sometimes I
imagined that I was actually working for the CIA or the government, like in a
futuristic film or sci-fi novel. The
first floor of the school was the art museum section, where student works were
displayed. The second floor held the
classroom, which didn't feel like a classroom at all, since everyone not only
had their own desks, but they were angled at such a way to make them like
modified easels. They were also
sectioned off into their own cubicles.
Mac computers lined the back walls.
A huge copy machine was also on the opposite wall, but inside its own
room. The entire room smelled like wood,
and paint, and eraser shavings.
There
were three teachers total, who all taught at the same time in the main
room. I say “taught”, but it was more
like we were given a specific project, shown an example of a previous student’s
work, and then told to make our own. We
were given 5 days for each of these projects.
The entire week, the three teachers milled around slowly, giving
suggestions or comments. Frankly, I
remember loving every minute of it.
Everything was leisurely, and if I drew something that they didn’t quite
agree with for whatever reason, I could always use the old “Art is subjective”
card and they’d give in. We would break
for lunch, and as the weeks passed, I found myself clocking out and just
skipping the second half of the school day.
I never got reprimanded, and as long as I was showing progress at my
desk, showing the instructors my improvements, they didn’t seem to care in the
slightest.
Strictly speaking, I was happy in that environment. I felt that at the time, creating art work
was what I was meant to do in life. I
worked on my projects at my own pace, had as much help as I could ask for, and
I could leave early with no penalty if I so desired. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Stay tuned for Part 3 if it intrigues you.
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