Art School vs. Art Trail
Up until this week there has been one little thing standing between me and fully concentrating on the trail: college. But now, that's done. After a long 5 years, I have a Bachelors of the Arts with a Concentration in Photography from the Art and Design School of Kennesaw State University.
It sounds far more prestigious when I say it like that. And sadly, I feel that of all my graduating peers, I will be making the most use of my degree by walking up and down mountains for months on end. All that is say is... it's a bleak world for recent art grads. Art jobs nearly don't exist outside of simply deciding you're going to "be an artist" and making it work.
I truely do believe that my peers will keep shooting and keep creating art and I hope some are even lucky enough to go on to find freelance gigs, or do wedding or event photography. As for me, I have resigned to not pursuing such a route, simply out of personal taste, and am walking the trail as an artistic journey just as much as a spiritual and physical journey.
Not only have I vowed to still create art on the trail, with multiple "projects" already lined up in my mind, but I also want to use it as a time to ruminate on what I just spent half a decade focusing on. There are a million things I could do with what I just learned, including dropping it forever.
Unfortunately, I don't feel that being an artist is so much of a choice, but more of a natural way of being that you either act upon or don't. It is a means and way of perceiving your world. I sometimes feel frustrated by my lack of say in being an artist and that tells me I could ever drop it.
But with that being said, there is an obvious change that will come in my life when eating, sleeping and setting up/breaking down shelter become the most important things in my life. Art will either become wholly superfluous or the single most interesting thing I do.* How will this affect my work? Will I be too tired to make it or it be all I want to do? (Obligatory rhetorical question, my signature move)
In the end, I would love to have a large collection of fairly related cross sections of work I created while on the trail. It is a major season of someone's life if they choose to do this, and an interesting one at that, so I hope to make the best of it artistically.
*I believe that statement is an exaggeration of two possible sides and feel that most likely neither will fully happen. It just gets the point across!
It sounds far more prestigious when I say it like that. And sadly, I feel that of all my graduating peers, I will be making the most use of my degree by walking up and down mountains for months on end. All that is say is... it's a bleak world for recent art grads. Art jobs nearly don't exist outside of simply deciding you're going to "be an artist" and making it work.
I truely do believe that my peers will keep shooting and keep creating art and I hope some are even lucky enough to go on to find freelance gigs, or do wedding or event photography. As for me, I have resigned to not pursuing such a route, simply out of personal taste, and am walking the trail as an artistic journey just as much as a spiritual and physical journey.
Not only have I vowed to still create art on the trail, with multiple "projects" already lined up in my mind, but I also want to use it as a time to ruminate on what I just spent half a decade focusing on. There are a million things I could do with what I just learned, including dropping it forever.
Unfortunately, I don't feel that being an artist is so much of a choice, but more of a natural way of being that you either act upon or don't. It is a means and way of perceiving your world. I sometimes feel frustrated by my lack of say in being an artist and that tells me I could ever drop it.
But with that being said, there is an obvious change that will come in my life when eating, sleeping and setting up/breaking down shelter become the most important things in my life. Art will either become wholly superfluous or the single most interesting thing I do.* How will this affect my work? Will I be too tired to make it or it be all I want to do? (Obligatory rhetorical question, my signature move)
In the end, I would love to have a large collection of fairly related cross sections of work I created while on the trail. It is a major season of someone's life if they choose to do this, and an interesting one at that, so I hope to make the best of it artistically.
*I believe that statement is an exaggeration of two possible sides and feel that most likely neither will fully happen. It just gets the point across!
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