My Last Semester of Art School

Hey Stranger!

I am in finals week right now, a week away from graduating (again). These last two years have been a doozy and that’s saying the very least. Not to jump right in but, I started graduate school immediately after a two week partial hospitalization program and a loony bin stay.

You know how insane I have to be to start at such a low?

I mean, it wasn't like I hadn’t been at that place before mentally, but to put it in perspective, I had just shaved my head and had my 2007 Britney Spears moment. I almost chose to put off my MFA program because I had so much to figure out internally and I was afraid I would ruin myself more and find a way to sabotage it. It is at times where you feel most undeserving, that you need to take the leap.

There is nothing scarier than when life decides to uproot everything and you're expected to be super chill about it. That time was one of those kinds of moments. But I decided that I had to see it through. I got into the program, I gotta do it. So I got a u-haul and I started moving my stuff into the grad painting studio. Thesis year was this exact vibe again as well. A shit ton of change that I’m expected to be nonchalant about when there is not a single nonchalant bone in my body. Thesis year was extremely hard. I learned so much about myself, and now that I am on the other side of it, every single bit of energy, sweat, burnout, tears, splinters, sickness, (and MORE OH MY!) was worth it.

I have met some of the best people because of this program, I’ve become friends with faculty and I am bonded to people through so many funny, random interactions and 4am sessions in the studio. I’ve had random injuries, tons of fails, breakthroughs and millions of dance breaks with my studiomates. I gained a sense of community right when I needed it the most. Is the community perfect? By no means! We all experienced a lot of up and downs with each other, in our personal lives, and in the studios. That is the nature of graduate school. I saw it through, and I’m really glad I did.

And now I am entering another new phase of my life. I walk in commencement in a week and I feel much differently than I did when I was graduating undergrad. Positive, negative, it’s a mix for sure, but not for the same reasons. The biggest difference is I don’t feel lost and burned out like I did when I graduated undergrad. I feel tired yes, but I had my bout of burnout last November and right after my thesis showcase a month ago. After that passed, I focused a lot more on my rest.

So I feel invigorated, and at the very same time, I am afraid; to be graduating NOW with [gestures vaguely] everything going on, and the ways the political state have already impacted my life, I am afraid of the working world I am entering because it is in a worse state than it was when I was younger. And I will be so candid, those student loans are looking scary! But I also have all these incredible new skills, sense of self, confidence, a bigger network of people, all that jazz; so I am not exactly starting from scratch. I have to trust myself the same way I’ve been taught to in the thesis process.

New beginnings are scary, and I don’t know if they ever soften or if the whole point is that I build the endurance for when they come circling the block. I do know that I have loved art school. I truly think these have been the best years of my life, and above all else: I am really excited to see what the people in my cohort do with their lives and I hope they feel the same.

It’s been an honor to work with the people I have met here.

I survived a graduate art school program.

Til next time, Stranger!