2003-09-03 - 10:52 pm
School is proving to be completely overwhelming. It's a combination of things that have piled onto each other causing my outlook on the next year to be very grim and strained. So far I have had three classes—-Introduction to Weaving and Fibre (weaving on multi-harness looms as well as fibre identification), Fibre and Mixed Media (sculpture), and Myth in Literature (English)--and already I feel completely over my head. I haven't done anything creative in my studio classes at all this week, instead I've been sitting in slide rooms, listening to lectures, and basically being scared shitless. The instructors are spewing out this intellectually sophisticated artspeak that I just barely understand, making the simpliest things sound way more complicated than they need to be. All this talk about courses, art, projects, critiques and expectations has set my mind on hyperdrive. I don't need anymore talk, I need to get my hands dirty!
It doesn't help that I have PMS this week either. Although my hormones aren't as raging as they usually are, I'm still completely unimpressed and critical over everything. Though, this is the type of PMS I can handle because most of the time my misery is very hilarious to people around me, in turn making it easier for me to get through it (laughter is the best medicine). I'm hoping that once this week is through, my hormone levels even up, and I actually start working in the studio, that my less than ecstatic view on everything will deminish.
Tomorrow I have ceramics, wheel-throwing to be exact. I'm really curious as to what this will consist of and how I will react in the environment given that I haven't really worked with clay other than a brief encounter with handbuilding. Hopefully, this will become my "easy class" and be my breath of air in the middle of the week from all my other courses.
One exciting thing so far about school is that I'm going on a field trip next week with my Mixed Media class to Bragg Creek (about an hour outside of Calgary, near the mountains). We're going to spend the entire day on this family's property creating "Intimate Earthwork" on the land. Basically, it will be me weaving sticks together into multiple balls and placing them a field and calling it art. This weekend I plan on spending a few hours in Nose Hill Park experimenting with different materials and techniques. At the end of our "Earthwork Day", our work will be critiqued and photographed so our adventures can be kept forever! I'm looking forward to it even though I sounded really unimpressed by the entire thing earlier today.
Which reminds me, I should do a small amount of research on basket weaving....
Anyway, I have a ton of shit to read before this coming Wednesday. The first 100 pages of The Death of Vishnu by Manil Suri has to be read and somewhat understood by 12pm on the 10th. Let's hope I can do it.
Here's to being overworked!
