Hey urbanhonking! Life has been busy busy busy hectic hectic hectic. It’s not you, it’s me! I swear! I haven’t even had time to call my mom lately… which is a whooooole n’other topic. Anyways, I thought I’d write about school because not a day goes by where I don’t have a moment where I pause and think “I love my school”… which is honestly a great feeling.
(right now I’m a little distracted because I have friends over doing homework and singing/dancing to donna summer, I’m going to try and focus on writing clear sentences but please please please forgive me if I’m a littler scatter-brained)
SO, my school. It stresses me out, kills me, shoots me down, builds me up, challenges me, and pulls my limbs in every which way… and all of this makes me a better artist, member of society, and just a better person in general. I’ve never felt more like I actually belong somewhere then when I’m here, in Portland, making art.
I thought I’d give you a little treasure map of my life during the week, just because someone might find it interesting and HEY you need to know what I’m doing if I’m not blogging every second of every day. So here’s what my week at PNCA looks like:
Monday morning I wake up before the sun. It’s rough, it’s terrible, I am not meant to rise in the dark. 6AM: I shuffle around the apartment like a zombie. Usually spill my coffee a few times, try to crawl back in to bed (always a bad idea), and eventually I make it out the door… and I almost always forget something, and that’s why there’s a bunch of jumbled post-its around my room with random lists. I am the absolute furthest thing from being a morning person so all of my simple morning tasks take me about triple the time it would for a regular person. After gathering myself for the day I head out on my small 1 mile walk to school. As much as I hate being up before 9am, I love the walk to school. On Mondays I am alone in my trek to PNCA and I love it. It’s an awakening 20 minute walk to school that starts my week off right. When I get to school, I sit in a dimly lit room to watch slides of Paleolithic Art. Art history is fascinating and so inspiring. We ask ourselves the question, how did we discover the ability to make art? So far, we have no traces of bad art. Cave paintings were already so advanced; using symbolism and creative mediums. When was there a time when humans created bad art? I guess that depends on what you think art IS but still, it’s an interesting thought. Have humans always had a natural ability to analyze their world and create art?
After the 3 hours of discussing ancient art and dozing off a dozen times I move in to Digital Tools. A class that I LOVE. Well, I love/hate it. I am okay with a computer, like every other kid my age but I am no genius. Right now we’re learning the ins and outs and ups and downs of photoshop. It is amazing! (plus my teacher is a babe, which makes it much less painful when I’m drowning in the lingo of masking and dodging and burning and spot healing and what the heck does VECTOR mean?!). Let’s see, to my left is a cute guy/man and to my right are two girls I don’t really talk to and all around me there’s the light humming of 20 huge beautiful Mac computers. It’s pretty snazzy. This class makes me really excited about learning. I feel that I am absolutely getting my moneysworth every day. To the average computer joe, photoshop is not that impressive but to me it’s mind-blowing. And I’m just now sort of kind of MAYBE getting the hang of Adobe Illustrator. It all makes me think about going into graphic design/communication design. What do you think? Should I choose a major off of what makes me most happy or what will possibly give me a successful career? Both are extremely important.
Moving on… Mondays after digital tools I am done for the day and I come home absolutely pooped and work on homework til the wee hours of the morning, which is not good for my health considering the next day I start all over again at 6am. It’s painful but I’m learning that I can function off of 2 hours of sleep a lot better than I thought. I don’t remember what it’s like to have regular sleeping patterns. I don’t remember what it’s like to function correctly. It’s frustrating some days to not remember how to spell basic words or to forget where I put something only seconds before… But hey, it’s only a few years of my life and I’m young right?
ON Tuesdays I wake up before the sun AGAIN. It’s twice as hard the second day in a row of doing this. I blindly walk in to the kitchen, make coffee, usually knock into a few walls, spill coffee grounds on my bare feet and then there’s the annoying feeling of something crumbly between my toes. Tuesdays are rough. I’m in a raging bitch of a mood and I cringe at the idea of being indoors from 8am-6pm. Tuesdays I have about 5 other people walking to school with me: all equally cranky (with some exceptions) and in need of caffeine. My first class out of three is Time Arts. Our teacher shows us cool videos of fascinating work like that of: marina abramovic (i think that’s how you spell it), arthur ganson, blublu, the yes men… The exposure to this kind of art is great and opening my eyes to so much. And the Time Based Arts Festival was only 2 weeks after being introduced to this kind of art so it’s all new and exciting. Kind of like when you get new shoes and you can’t stop staring at your feet. I’m pretty mesmerized by the idea of time arts. Right now I’m working on an audio piece. If I can figure it out I’ll post it on here, AS WELL as my animation I made the other week. I’ve been producing SO much work, I feel like a real live artist or something- WHAT? WEIRD?!
After Time Arts I have basic drawing with Arvie Smith, a man who looks and sounds like Morgan Freman so of course– I love this class. Some days it feels excruciatingly basic since I came from an arts based high school and have been studying drawing for many years (not to sound like a pompous dick but, i can draw).. Buuut on the other hand I believe it’s always beneficial to work on what you think you know. So we spend time figure drawing and re-learning perspective and exploring textures and mark-making. We visited a few galleries in the Pearl District this last week and it was exciting. Although it’d be interesting to have a discussion with artists about the cost of some of the paintings we saw. $19,000 for oil on canvas? I’m sure there are plenty of factors in a gallery show that I am unaware of but $19,000 seemed a little steep in some places. Maybe when I’m a starving artist I will disagree.
You know what’s especially pleasant about PNCA? The fact that the entire school has lunch together. My drawing class is 11-3, but from 12:30-1:30 the entire school breaks for lunch. I love the sense of community that this brings to PNCA. It reminds me of elementary school when we all stood in line for a hot lunch and then sat around picnic benches and walked around the track. Everyone was out and available. In college it’s not much different. We sit around outside people-watching and analyzing just about everyone that walks by. PNCA is a small school, only about 600 right now so it’s fun to walk out and be able to say hi to almost everyone that walks by and know their first name. It’s so personal and warm and fuzzy.
After basic drawing I have 2D Design. It’s been okay. I could not stand the teacher in the beginning, but she has grown on me in the best sense. Last week we did linoleum block prints while studying pattern. And since I’d like to major in print-making, it made my little heart flutter. Rolling the ink out, the SOUND of rolling out the ink, using the printing press, peeling the paper off the print– ah! It just feels good to be doing it again.
On Wednesdays I just have Digital Tools, my one day where I get to sleep in and arrive at school at 11am. It’s such a treat, and honestly gets me through the week without a mental breakdown. Also, the free yoga on Tuesdays and Fridays helps with that too. I am once again hooked on yoga. I feel like I’m sort of getting in to a groove here and it’s comforting. I have a pretty rad group of friends that is constantly entertaining, and I somewhat know my way around town… My life is coming together quite nicely (besides the fact that I can’t find a job)
AND dun dun dunnnnn, FRIDAYS I have no school.
but Fridays I sit in my apartment all day attempting to get on top of my schoolwork. It usually doesn’t go as planned. My friend Matty comes over and we try to do homework but really end up listening to 90s music on Pandora and singing and dancing around my room and decide to get food and then the day is lost. Ayyyy.
EXCITING RANDOM NEWS FROM THE FRESHMAN:
I turned 21
I saw Obama (!!!)
I bought a record player
I am the proud owner of a mini cactus
An old man told me I was “enchanting”
I saw a musical (In The Heights). Amazing.
I went to the Rebuild Center
I now own a raincoat
I CAN’T FIND A JOB (oh wait, that’s not exciting)
My favorite glasses broke (okay this isn’t exciting either, just monumental)
I found a free microwave in the hallway of my apartment building
CURRENTLY:
Listening to: Donna Summer (on vinyl)
Studying: color theory, sound art, ink wash figure drawing, adobe illustrator, and ancient roman art
Eating: enchiladas (that I made myself)
Thinking: I have bad breath
Wondering: If I have enough time to finish all my homework tonight
I was at the Obama event too!