July 7, 2001
6:09pm

I have not drawn yet this summer. This may seem like a trivial thing to worry about, but it's not when you're an art major. Especially not when you should be building your senior portfolio.

I think the problem is that I'm afraid. After three years of art school I can't draw for fun anymore. It's too closely associated with work.

When I first came to Kent I believed I had talent. I knew it could be improved. I knew my teachers would criticize me. I knew better than to expect to be the best. I knew my classes would be filled with people who were the best artists at their particular high schools. I didn't know exactly what to expect, but I came prepared to do my best.

Some good things have come out my time here. I learned how to take constructive criticism. I learned how to paint, which is something I completely sucked at before. I learned new techniques. I learned to better appreciate (most) abstract art. I learned that I, under no circumstances, would want to be an artist.

Many bad things resulted as well. I learned that I absolutely suck at sculpture and printmaking. (Which is just as well, being that I hate them both. I like looking at the results, just don't ask me to participate in the process.) My confidence in my own ability as been eroded to almost nothing. I've suffered through entirely too many unconstructive negative comments, emotional outbursts, and plain old stupidity at the hands of teachers. (Art professors can be really emotional.) I've often wondered why I'm wasting my precious youth here. Happily, I've only got one more year left here. Amen and hallelujah.

The only thing that keeps me going is that after this last year I'll be free to attend animation school. I consider my years here as training for that, which is what I ultimately want to do. I now know how college works. I pretty much know how to deal with red tape and beauracracy. I have been made a better artist and I will need such skill when I become an animator. However, all this is null and void if I remain too scared to begin again.

I'm not too worried, though. Although I am usually a mellow person, I am much more ambitious when it comes to my work. My mom seems to think I'm merely dreaming when I say I'm going to be an animator. We could barely afford my schooling here at Kent State, and it's a public university. Most schools that teach animation are private institutions. She wonders how I could afford to go to one of those schools while I still have to pay off the loan from this one. These are good practical questions and I'm worried about their solutions. What I worry about more is compacting a life full of resentfulness, bitterness, and pain into a job I hate. I worry more about my life being one big waste of time. So I choose to believe that the how will be dealt with when the time comes, as long as I focus on the dream.

I really want to go to the California Institute of the Arts, or CalArts for short. Two of its founders were Walt and Roy Disney, so you know the animation program is top notch. Genndy Tartatovsky, the creator of my favorite cartoon show "Dexter's Lab", attended that school. So did Craig McCracken, the creator of "The Powerpuff Girls". I'd love to go there, but there are many obstacles. It's very expensive to attend (about $20,000/year, not counting out-of-state student fees) and located across the country in California (which is a very expensive state to live in). I would never be able to attend without a substantial scholarship. So my search continues.

My one ray of hope has come from Edinboro University located in Edinboro, Pennsylvania. It's a state school like Kent and it's cheaper for me to go there as an out-of-state student than it is here at Kent as an in-state student. They have a cinema/animation department that seems pretty decent. Of course, that is a conclusion I've come to with only web research as my guide. I still have to go visit the place.

My only worry about going there is that it's not located near any International Churches of Christ. The Cleveland, Ohio, church is the nearest church on that side of Pennsylvania.

I figured the whole thing out. There's a reasonably priced apartment complex in Erie, Pennsylvania that I could live in. Erie is 31 minutes away from Edinboro and 2 hours away from Cleveland. That means that every Sunday I would have to travel 2 hours to Cleveland to attend church. That really sucks, but the more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that's what I must do. I have not found another public university offering animation that's near a church (except in expensive California). Besides, before a church was planted there, our church members from Toledo travelled 2 hours every Sunday to the Cleveland church. If they could do it, so could I.