more, please...

See, I went to a school in the Phoenix Union High School District that was considered a "Magnet" school. The primary goal of a "magnet" school was to suck in students from the far reaches of the city into schools where the majority was minorities (i.e Hispanic or Afro-American), OR, to draw minorities to primarily white schools, and the "lure" was extra spiffy classes that concentrated on certain areas of academics... Performing arts, Visual arts, Law and Aerospace were the big draw for my school. Anyway, the goal of the magnet program was to try to diversify the schools' student populations, while offering the students specialized classes.

Students in the magnet programs were bussed in from their respective parts of town so we wouldn't have to worry about how we were going to get our asses halfway across town just to go to school. I probably spent about an hour on a school bus in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon to get home.

But I digress... back to my bitter memory from school. I attended my school for the Visual Arts program, Drawing & Painting, specifically. The first two years of high school I had an art teacher that I adored. She taught me how to use watercolor paints when she realized I had a natural knack for it the summer before my freshman year (two week program for students interested in a school's magnet program to 'test drive' each of the categories within the main program one was interested in.. so since I was interested in Visual arts, I got to dabble in drawing/painting, photography, computer art, and ceramics), and she pretty much let me have free reign with the ideas that I came up with for drawing or painting projects, outside of the regular curriculum.

And then in my Junior year, I needed to take a foreign language class to fulfill some credit requirements. I chose Spanish, which conflicted with my favorite art teacher's classes. Well, at least they did that year, because she moved her classes to the morning (whereas they were in the afternoon the previous two years), and there were no other Spanish classes in the afternoon. Since there was another drawing/painting teacher doing the afternoon run, I opted to try that in order to keep my language class.

The new teacher didn't start out all that bad. I do believe it was in her class that I created the painting that was selected to be displayed in Washington D.C. It was just toward the end of my Junior year where it started to go downhill. I was working on a project with a couple of neat flowers (I don't know what they're called, but I'll photograph that painting and post it later, in addition to the one that hung in D.C.), and fluttering over those flowers was a butterfly. The idea I had in my head was to make the butterfly's wings transparent and pearlescent, but I couldn't figure out how to get it on paper.

I really don't know what the hell my teacher was thinking, but obviously she either misunderstood me or didn't care... she offered up an "idea" and started laying the paint on the paper, in darker colors than I had wanted.

For those who don't know this, watercolors are virtually permanent. They cannot be peeled off like acrylics (or covered over in the case of acrylics painted thin, because the watercolor paper is a big part of the art of watercolors, and trying to cover a mistake on watercolor pretty much ruins the effect the paper gives to the paint), and cannot be scraped off like oils while they're still wet (oils take a long time to dry).

I was flabbergasted, to say the least. But I was a very timid teenager, and avoided conflict when possible, so I didn't protest, at least not verbally. Since it was the end of the school year at this point, I took the painting home (as well as some watercolor paints--HA!), and stashed it away. She had ruined it, basically.

Although when I pulled it out the other day and looked at it after all these years, it could probably be salvaged, I just won't get the translucent/transparent look in the wings that I had wanted orginally... they'll have to be a dark color.

My Senior year of high school, I needed to take a second year of Spanish. Same dilemma as the previous year, my favorite art teachers class was in the morning and Spanish was as well. So, again, I get stuck with the teacher that had pissed me off the previous year by ruining my painting.

My Senior year in her class started off badly. Senior art students' entire year is to be focused on projects that will be displayed at an end-of-year gallery showing, and the final grades based off of the projects put up in the gallery. Since my 'comfort' art is usually all fantasy-themed, I had an idea for my first project that I proposed to my teacher.

In my freshman or sophomore year I did a watercolor that had portrait of a horse's head, and two pegasus flanking the portrait. My idea for my first senior year project was something similar to that, except it would be be set in space, and the pegasus (and probably a unicorn, too) would be trotting along the rings of a planet (not necessarily a planet from our solar system, just a planet with rings). So it may be a little far-fetched in that animals can't breathe in space, but pegasi and unicorns are not real, so that does not matter. And if done properly, I think it could have been a very pretty piece.

But she shot my idea down. She said to me, "You know, if you ever want people to take your art seriously, you need to get away from all this fantasy stuff, focus on more realistic things."

She may have thought she was trying to be helpful and offering constructive criticism, but I felt like a squashed bug when she said that. She could have slapped me across the face and it would have had the same effect. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.

Oh, it gets better.

Then she proposes her idea for my project. Her idea is for me to try out illustrating children's books (she is trying to play toward my liking fantasy-type things.. Kind of two-faced if you ask me). Her idea was for me to illustrate a scene from Peter Rabbit.

Um, yeah, that's realistic. A rabbit that wears clothing and talks. Sure. I'd believe that a horse can have wings or a single horn before I would believe a rabbit can speak. Good god, woman.

But, as I've already said, I was a timid teenager, so I took the blows and humoured her. For all of three weeks, I think. I stewed. I got angrier and angrier every day I had to go to art class and work on her project idea. I even went to my original art teacher and pleaded my case. All she would do is shrug her shoulders and tell me she kind of agreed with my teacher, and I was not her student so I had to do what my own teacher instructed me to do.

Gee, thanks for having my back.

Then I decided I'd had enough, after my original art teacher wouldn't support me. I went to the administration office and started the paperwork to change my magnet class from art, to music. It was my way of flipping the bird and telling both my teachers to kiss my ass for stifling me rather than encouraging me to continue with what I loved to do. Shortly thereafter I was in the music magnet, taking piano lessons, forsaking my god-given talent. I think I was so mad that I stopped sketching & painting even at home. I still doodled, but didn't work on anything serious.

My bitterness against them continued into college. I had won a scholarship that I'd applied for, which would give me $1000 a semeseter for two years, to spend on classes, books, etc. So I signed up to be a music major at a community college since there was no way that I'd be able to pay for a full load of classes at a university with only $1K a semester (my family is not rich, so they would not be able to help pay for college. The scholarship was all I had).

I took two years of music courses, in addition to the general courses. I took private piano lessons, as was required of a music major. Those took up about half the scholarship money for each semester alone.

And it was all for naught.

Why? Because I am terrified of performing in front of a crowd, even if that crowd is only four or five people. I barely made it through some of the recitals we were required to do. Then I learned that in order to graduate from a university with a major in music, I would have to perform a TWO HOUR recital, for the general public, i.e. anyone on campus who wanted to attend. And it had to be a SOLO recital.

Um, no. No can do, my friend.

So that was it for college, I had no idea what I wanted to do after that, so I started working, and have been since.

I've taken a few online courses for web design, but not much else. Someday I'll continue my education, but at this point, I am not sure what classes I'd take aside from the general courses.

But anyway, when I think back to my final years in high school, I regret that I made the decision I did, at least in some ways. I know I should have, at the very least, not let her words affect me outside of school. Because frankly, if I had not made the choice to leave, I may not have met my fiance, as we met in concert/marching band in college. If I were to have continued my art classes, I may have taken art in college as well, which probably would not have included band..

So in that respect, the decision to rebel against my teachers was a good one.

So, now, 11 years after high school, I'm getting back into art in one form or another. Well, in reality I've been dabbling over the years, on paper, on the computer, and with various craft things, and I started working with polymer clay last year... but it's just been within the last year and a half that I've actually tried making any money with what I'm doing (the dragon sculptures on eBay).

And as for what my teacher told me, about people not taking artists seriously if they're strictly fantasy-based? Hmm. Let's see... There's Michael Whelan (does lots of different things, but I especially like his dragons), Amy Brown (oh gee, and she uses watercolors!!), Brian & Wendy Froud (another artist who uses watercolors), Nene Thomas (yet another artist who uses watercolors!), and I could just go on and on! These people are taken very seriously, and sometimes I wish I could look that woman up and meet her just to shove examples of their work in her face and tell her, "Fantasy art not taken seriously by people, eh? Thanks a lot, bitch, thanks for knocking down the first domino that resulted in my nearly complete abandonment of art", and then shove pictures of some of my sculptures in her face and then say, "it may have taken me several years, but I'm getting back into what I love, and I've made some money from it. I may not have a huge following yet, but I'm working on it!!".

Bitch.
That's all, folks...