(no subject)

[olwensmiles]

I need to write about what I have learned being here, being abroad for four months, living abroad and making art abroad. Hans posed the suggestion that maybe I should write something, but I already knew that I should and that I would. What have I learned? What have I accomplished? Why did I come here and what did I get out of all of this? Frankly, I don't really have all the answers, or at least not formulated answers yet. I need to work this out in my head. I guess starting from the beginning is best. I think I wanted to go abroad mostly because I just wanted to expand myself. What does that even mean? Well, I guess I was hoping to open myself to new things, new places, new ideas, new opportunities, new plans, new possibilities. Basically just something new and I didn't have any real expectations. When I applied to study abroad I really wasn't concentrating on the art part. I just wanted to go abroad where I knew nothing and no one. I wanted to go and survive it. I wanted to see and experience. Furthermore, I unknowingly needed a break from what I knew. I needed a break from MICA because I think I have mostly just been following through. I needed a break to figure out what the hell I am doing and why the hell I am doing it. I haven't been putting myself out at MICA. I have completed assignments and I have received good marks. I have made things but nothing truly significant to me. I constantly formulate these ideas that I think may amount to something and that really seem moving and important in my head, but I never seem to be able to actually push myself over the edge to find or create something important. I'm not sure why that is. I think maybe I am partially afraid? I can't exactly put a finger on what I am afraid of. Failure? I don't know; but I do think that lots of times I don't see a point to all of it. I don't see a point to what I create so I never push myself very far. I also have been thinking that maybe, just maybe, I am just doing art because I don't know what else I would have done with myself. I couldn't have gone to a "regular college." I couldn't have done that, so what alternative did I have? I knew art, or thought I did. I knew that I was the best artist in my grade level and, so, that seemed like an easy decision. I remember there was that time period during your senior year of high school when all the adults you know start asking these things: What college are you going to? What are you majoring in? Oh, and what do you want to do with your major after you graduate? I would usually say that I hoped to live off of my art. That's not what I want anymore. I want more than that. But, at the same time, I still want to make art that is really important to me. I want to be a successful artist, but mostly just for myself--for myself and for the people I love. I mean, I would still like to share my creations with others, but their approval isn't necessary to me. These are the things I am discovering. And this is partly what I have learned while being at AKI. I still have not created anything that has really made me feel accomplished, but I have this dying want and need to do so. I want to in the worst way but just cannot seem to execute. This experience of being here, in the Netherlands, and being at the AKI, while maybe not the most successful in terms of producing art or learning artistic processes, it has been a lot of living internally and a lot of self-discovery. This experience has been important in that it has showed me that I could survive it. It has shown me that I want to be a successful artist. But successful in my own terms, and not in anyone else's. And I know I want more and right now I think that is working in Community Arts. I am, for some reason or another, really invested in human connection and human well-being. I do not know where this will lead me, but it is a direction at least, despite how abstract and uncertain it may be. Right now my plan is to graduate with my bachelor's degree in Fine Arts. Then I will most likely stay in Baltimore the year after I graduate to obtain a Master of Arts in Community Arts, which is a year and a half long program. After that I will most likely move back home to Rochester where I will attend Nazareth or Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and I will get my Masters in Teaching. This is my tentative and only slightly thought-out plan. I could, and maybe should, branch out to other geographical areas. In fact, I want to. But I have such difficulty in doing that because of my attachment to my family. I feel like I will regret my choice either way, losing time with my family, or denying myself the possibility of finding and experiencing much more than I can in just this one place. Being at the AKI has also taught me that I should seek out what I am really interested in, in the sense that I should make something meaningful to me and not just make things to make them. And so, I am interested in human connection, in family, time, death and life, nature, the universal, the spiritual. I could continually branch out and list everything I am really interested in, but these are a few of the main categories. So right now I am most interested in an image that can almost encompass all of these things, and that is of the home. Someone's home. I think I can make this big. I think it it is part of a core of something I am really interested in and connected to. I am hoping this is where I will finally be able to push myself over the edge.

Other things I have discovered:
I want roots but I also want to fly. Meaning I want a home, I want a central place I can connect myself to and dig myself into, and family. I need somewhere to have this. And yet, I really want to go and go and experience. I want to travel and I want to go and I want to help other people in other countries. I want these two opposing things all at once and I am not sure how to make them work together.

This isn't exactly a "What I Learned" note that I will be sharing with my instructors, but this is for me and I have more to say, just not right now. I will expand on it. And I think I will write a list of goals and plans. I think that that will be difficult, but I think it will be good to do.