back from bitterness

So, after being really down on collaboration the last week or so has really turned me around. While I was really feeling like I needed to own something I was working on, I think I found a happy medium between owning it and having help, opinion, and collaboration. In studio core I was pretty much stuck while working on my last sculpture of the semester. For those who don't know- sculpture is really not my thing. After I sliced right into my finger the first day of class I knew this semester wasn't going to be easy for me in that class. And it hasn't. I make some really ugly stuff that I usually spend hours on in and out of the class once I finally convince my mind to create in a three-dimensional framework (a task that takes longer than you could imagine).

Well there I was, stuck. With a part of a metal sculpture that also needed to include wood and plastic. Far from being done, I planned out how I might want to include the plastic element. I made it, pretty successfully, which had me stunned in the first place. Then I'm sitting there with part of a metal sculpture, an unassembled portion of a plastic sculpture and seemingly no way to merge the two. Then it hits me: I'll drill a hole and use a wooden dowel to connect them. Except I don't have a dowel, nor is there a cutter small enough to create one that will fit. Then my superhero Nikki pipes in- she's got a metal rod that's the right size, and here, why don't I use it? Awesome. It not only fits, but looks great. Now while this may have been a small collaboration, or just helpful in the process of creating, it really reminded me why I am in this program to begin with. After being so down on creating in the more public environment of a school setting, it had clicked back into place. I missed this. I needed reflection, opinion, other sets of creative eyes. It was the reason I came back to school, to not only be inspired again, but to have the time and ability to create outside of my comfort zone. To get feedback on this thing we call creativity. To be back in a working community of artists.

I know it seems like a stretch to have gotten all of that from just lending me some materials, and guidance, but with as hard as this first semester of being back in school and just being a grown up in this crazy world, it put me back on track- something I really needed.

Here's to an awesome semester behind us and three more to come.