countdown to spring break: 13 days
Can it be that I’m coming to my blog with good news?
Yes, I think it’s true!
While the opening of my senior show is still (thank goodness) 29 days away, I have now hung a small scale model of my project in my studio at the Warehouse! And I think it may work out alright.
Knock on wood!
There’s still a lot of work to be done, I don’t doubt that! But I’m beginning to think that I can go home for a large part of spring break after all. Yay! I feel like it’s been so long since I’ve seen my family. My middle brother, who’s also in college now, just changed his major from engineering to a double major in economics and politics, so I’m anxious to hear how that’s going for him. And last time I saw him, over Christmas, he had crazy stories to tell about putting road signs on roofs and other various and sundry events. He’s part of student council now, though, so maybe he’s changed his ways! =)
My mom is also in college this year; she’s getting her master’s in nursing. So between our collective homework, our entire family is kind of going nuts this year. But nuts in a very educated, enthused way. =D
If you want to visit campus and attend a party, you should come to the opening of the senior show at Messiah! It’s Saturday, March 29, from 7-10 p.m. There will literally be hundreds of people there to see the show, eat food, and generally have a good time.
At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t sure that we were ready to be seniors and make work good enough to be in the senior show. But I think this year’s show will be an amazing one. As much as I love our program and think it’s an excellent and rigorous one, sometimes there are pieces that I’m not sure about that somehow still end up in the senior exhibit. This year? I’m vouching for us. I think we will be overwhelmingly good.
Filed under general | Comments (2)wow, it’s snowing. where was this at christmas?
I’m an English major, but somehow I never expected to actually write the 20-30 page capstone paper. Imagine my surprise when I’m supposed to actually have a few pages to show my professor on Monday. Dr. Lake, professor of the Writing Seminar class, reassures us that “really, it’s just 20 one-page papers.”
I don’t know what he’ll say in our conference together on Monday, though. I told him last class that part of my manifesto this semester is to be a “problem student.” He laughed.
Mostly because my clarification of “problem student” simply means that I’m going to be willing to ask all my difficult questions, join in every discussion where I feel that I have something to contribute (rather than my usual wall-flower act), argue if I think we’re not getting to the heart of an idea, and tell him if his advice isn’t related to what I really want to convey in my paper. Basically, I’m going to be a problem student in that I refuse to be a passive student. I’m a senior and it’s about time I’m playing an active role in my seminar classes and pursuing what I care about.
Now if only I could discover what it is I’ll care about for the 20 pages of this paper! I drafted three pages last night, but mostly it is a 3 pages filled with capital-letter questions to myself, like WHAT WAS IT MILOSZ SAID ABOUT POEMS BEING LIKE OBJECTS? and HOW THE HECK DO I WEAVE MADELEINE L’ENGLE’S MEMOIR IN?
Liz, gracious theatre major that she is, has agreed to be part of my paper. So far, it begins with a story about how while we were writing together one night she stole my pen and wrote on her foot.
So that’s one less question I have to ask myself. HOW DOES THIS PAPER BEGIN? It begins with Liz.
Now go begin your weekend. (Speaking of bad transitions. . . . )
Filed under general | Comment (0)and here i thought we would never get snow
We got snow, ice, sleet, and terrible weather a few days ago. But driving along at night and seeing the light reflecting off the sheets of ice which are the neighbors’ yards. . . beautiful! This would be terrible skiing snow, according to my mother. Its original powdery inches were spectacularly fun to walk through, though! You know, before all those other icy things happened.
I’ve got to say, let’s breathe a sigh of relief that Valentine’s Day is over for another year. Sure, I’m not single, but that doesn’t mean I have to love Valentine’s Day. I think it’s pretty much the worst idea ever, even if you do have a significant other. Thankfully, my boyfriend agrees, so we took part in the funnest “boycott Valentine’s Day” party EVER.
And the party consisted of this: my friends and Greg and I ate candy and chips and watched Reign of Fire. Because hey, what subverts Valentine’s Day better than Matthew McConaughey in a non-romantic role (although, as always, shirtless for an absurd portion of the movie) and Christian Bale (aka Batman) fighting CGI dragons in one of the most poorly-written movies of all time?
The snarky comments made it worth it. Seriously, Mystery Science Theatre 3000 has nothin’ on us. Pretty much I love how witty my friends are and how enthusiastically they bring the weight of their wit to bear against any and all movies we watch communally.
Now why hasn’t that gone into any advertising for Messiah College? It could be our subtitle. Messiah College: The Home of Witty and Sarcastic Friendship .
Hey, I would enroll. =)
Filed under general, absurdity, humor | Comment (1)“i have woven a parachute out of everything broken” or “a definite independence.”
One of my art professors, Ted Prescott, talked in our senior show class on Monday about “breaking away.” Basically, he said he was interested in seeing work that we cared about. Even if that meant work that wasn’t approved of by the faculty. Eventually, every artist needs to break away to make what they care about. He even went so far as to say that breaking away is a healthy thing, a necessary step in the life of an artist.
It made me happy, because that’s been my whole year so far. I’ve spent it feeling combative when people try to direct my work in directions I don’t care about, I’ve answered back with definite negatives, and I’ve spent this year figuring out exactly what I do care about and setting my priorities accordingly.
Nobody can find your artistic path for you. It just isn’t possible. For that matter, nobody can teach you how to be organized or how to be successful at what you do. Every person has to find their own way around to whatever goal they really want. I feel like that’s why graduation is so hard for so many people. Finally they’re spinning their wheels, trying to get to their goal (or to even find their goal) but the path isn’t set out for them and nobody can really give them advice or help them to get there. It’s up to you.
Even with individual projects this is true. Nobody can tell you how to get to the end of a particular poem. You just have to work through the poem until you know what you want and what it needs. And then you have to work through several methods of getting to the goal you’ve determined. Then determine the one you like best or that best achieves your goals.
That’s one of the things I learned over J-term break when I researched Elizabeth Bishop. I went to Vassar College to see her manuscripts and poem drafts and some of her artwork. In her poem drafts, I discovered a mind struggling with breaking away, not just from conventions or prior training or the expectations of professors, but a mind struggling to break away from the previous drafts of a poem until it met her interior criteria for approval.
The least number of drafts I ever saw from Elizabeth Bishop was five, and in most cases the number was closer to 15. With every new draft of the poem she was breaking away from what she thought she had to write to find something that was more truly hers, that was more truly what she wanted or needed or meant to write.
I also learned that she was obsessive and painted with watercolors and has terrible handwriting.
But in any case, this week my manifesto consists of this: avoid histories. None of this “When I started the poem I intended. . . ” or “When I was five I liked to write. . .” or “This professor gave me this feedback and so this is how to piece got to be this way.” No. One must break away. One must say, “This is the object. This is what it means.” And then whatever audience happens to be near can critique as they like. But I reserve the right to politely ignore what they’re saying and do what I feel the pieces need.
Maybe that is erroneous thinking. But nobody can show me my own path, so it’s at least my own mistake. And that makes it a step further along the right path — my path — than anything else possibly could be.
Filed under general, the real world, vocation, art rants | Comment (0)