Life After College: Dreams, Fears, and Loads of Ideas

San Francisco Sunset, Spreadsheet, Microsoft Excel, Jan.2008

I am sipping a glass of my mother’s wine at my little sister’s miniature desk (my “temporary office” I like to call it.) Luckily, it’s sort of edgy to live with your parents right now. No, I don’t have my own place, but I get any color of fruit snacks I want at any time. Change of subject. Being an artist can be intimidating. Art is personal. My portfolio work is practically my diary. If you don’t like my art – you might not like me (living parents can cause one to become melodramatic.) While the economy has bitten the big one, I have drunk the water of life – dreams. I am going to be a famous stop-motion animation artist, a children’s book illustrator, a fashion designer, a magazine editor, a painter, and a glass artist. Not in that order, obviously! No, I am not really serious about that but there are so many amazing creative careers!

Do you remember how your goldfish went into shock after you loaded him/her into the bowl of freezing cold tap water? I felt a lot like that after graduation. I have the opportunity to creatively apply myself to almost any profession in almost every way. It is exhilarating and it is frustrating. Which way to turn? You’re probably feeling sorry for me right now. I know, I know, it will get better.

It is now January and I have been graduated for exactly six months today. Today marks the day in history that that I put my dreams and ideas into motion. For months I have obsessively and critically observed trends in the arts & crafts world. Much of my work is craft-based, though it has been classified as “fine art” because I have exhibited my work. Stop-motion animation studies like Bent Image Lab and handmade arts sites like Etsy are helping me gravitate towards my calling.

My college president told us that the “e” in e-mail stands for “evidence.” I will tell you - that is definitely true, but what about the “b” in blog? The first thing that comes to mind is “butter” because I just ate dinner. When I dig a little deeper, I think of “best” – as in the best thing that has ever hit planet earth (I love space, btw.) I would like this site to be a place for me to grow in my ability to express the ideas and processes my work, to make new friends in the art community, to promote myself, and to discover more artists. I would like to show you why I think the way I do and why I love the things I love. This may get weird. This may get funny. You might laugh. You might cry. I might not have one reader, but gosh dangit – I love life.