Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Therapy

Edit: I didn't do the wingdings on purpose. I don't know what happened.

This is the craziest semester of my college career. Never before have I taken 16.5 credits (not that much, to some people, but a lot to me) AND worked at the same time. I am a TA for an Art for Elementary Teachers class, and still hold my job at the A La Carde kiosk in the University Mall. Three of my 8 classes are block, but studio classes, and take a lot of time. I find myself living through my planner and looking forward to checking off as many things I can in a day as humanly possible. I feel like I don't have free time anymore. My days are spent alone on campus or at work, yet I yearn for time to myself when I can do something that relaxes me and that I truly enjoy.
Since school started, Charlie was born, and I was on my deathbed for a week, I feel like I have had a very short fuse. I get frustrated easily, I have cried a lot, had some meltdowns, and snapped at the people I love most. I have tried to change the person I become when I find myself spread thin, but in the moment, nothing changes. I feel like a watered-down, real-life version of the hulk. It's not fair to me and it's not fair to the people around me when I channel my frustration to things that don't deserve it.
People have asked me why I like art so much, why I am drawn to it, and why I want to spend my life being an art teacher. I have the answers everyone wanted, never really thinking too much about it. Today I found my answer. The very nature of working at a kiosk where the customer approaches you for business lends to a lot of free time. I go entire shifts without making a sale (and then some days are super busy). During this time, I usually get a lot of homework done. One of my ongoing homework assignments in Dr. Gray's class is to do a personal research sketchbook, where I pick a theme and research it, doing works along the way and journaling about them. I picked interior design, and with that I am looking deeper into where I come from, who I am, and what I want to become (with some personal history and family history included). The time I spend working on that sketchbook are literally therapeutic for me. It is almost the only time in my entire day when I stop thinking about what I have to do next with school or life, and can just vent my emotions on paper. I feel accomplished knowing I created something, and am proud of what I make, even if it doesn't look good. For me, the whole purpose of creating art is the process (if it looks good, great). In my sketches I get my thoughts out on paper. Sometimes they're funny stories, meaningful thoughts, inside jokes, reflections on life, worries, interests, or things that bring joy to my life. I love writing, but I find the impact of images very powerful.
So I guess the real reason why art is one of the things that has stuck by my side almost my whole life is this: it is my therapy. It helps me understand the world around me, and makes me feel like I have accomplished something and magnified my talents.

What is your therapy?
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

... what's with the wingdings?

Becky Green said...

seriously.. did you just do an entire post in wingdings? i hope you know we can still copy and paste and change the font. you've not fooled us. i hope there's nothing nasty in there about me.

Gopher Girl said...

Dance... hence why I took a dance class every semester,no matter how many credits I had, just to stay sane.


I miss it :(

Kellie said...

lol the wingdings was a fluke. sorry guys. but what if i really did post something "secret" in wingdings and thought no one could translate it? i bet some people actually do that...

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