100 Lives Lived - Art School Part 1

Dear reader,

First, apologies for the delay; I got sick and life fully stopped for a few weeks. But, we can finally get started with the incredible stories from my life. I have had yet more people in real life (IRL) express how every time they learn something about me, it is like I have lived 100 lives. While I was sick, I sat down and attempted to start writing and also made up a working list of the many things I have experienced: travel, my education, skills I’ve picked up, sports I’ve participated in, lessons I’ve had, jobs, time volunteering, and organizations I have been or am currently a part of.

Part of why I stopped making the videos in the first place was because I didn’t quite know how to proceed, when some of these things I have not even thought about in a decade or longer, started to bring up memories. Some of these experiences and lives I’ve lived are attached to trauma. The best way to explain it, is that I have lived an extremely adventurous life. There are many stories attached to these various lives I’ve lived, and some took place over a very long time, so they will take multiple entries to share even just the basics about, such as the first life we will touch on - art school. I am not exactly going chronologically, but whatever feels right to talk about each time I sit down to write. It’s a creative outlet, which shouldn’t be a surprise when you learn that I spent 11 years in art school. So let’s start there - how the heck did that even happen?!

I spent my Middle and High School years in art school, and then even some my college time in art school. So I shall first paint the picture of what to expect with my art school posts, a rough sketch if you will, and a little bit of the art, history of my art education, and art history. And, if you’re new here, yes, I absolutely make ALL of the puns.

However, my life in art school started even before that, in Elementary (or Primary) school for me. I had an incredible art teacher, Mrs. Snyder, that saw my passion for all things creative and not only nurtured it, but helped to point me in the direction of the art schools I ended up attending. I will forever be grateful to her. I just want to take a moment, though I have no idea if she’ll ever see this, to say thank you Mrs. Snyder. You changed my life. You helped me to channel all of my big emotions as a kid and you helped me to escape my daily hell. I am forever in your debt.

I imagine you have some questions dear reader, such as how does one attend art school, what does art school look like for a tween/teen, how could it be afforded if my childhood wasn’t so great, and many more. I will attempt to explain these and more, but don’t forget, I am a real person and I don’t owe anyone anything. I just know that by sharing my experiences I not only help myself heal, but I can help others in a number of ways. 

So let’s get into it - I attended public school my entire life. None of it was private and I had to audition to attend. How the audition is done depends on the major. I attended middle school for visual arts. The other options in my middle school were: band, orchestra, theatre, and dance. The rest of those probably make more sense - you literally prepare an audition piece, whatever the specific requirements were on your instrument, a monologue, etc. But for visual art? Well, you put together your portfolio of pieces - you needed to have a combination of 2-D and 3-D pieces - the teachers would review them, and then you may or may not be selected for what was called juries. That is effectively stage two of auditions for the visual arts program. You go in, with your portfolio, answer questions about any art training or education you have already, explain why you made choices for certain pieces, and you also had to answer in long form some questions about what you hoped to learn and achieve as a student in the program. It was rather nerve-racking, far more than any other audition I’ve ever had to do.

The high school I attended had the same options for art school, but because of the middle school was a partner, there was also concentrations you could do, if you had the background. There was the vocal major, in theatre you could focus on set design and composition, and even a specific style of dance to name a few. The school also has a magnet for technology. It is quite the school and a world-renowned one, actually. It is also the oldest high school for Black people in the area. Not only are there multiple Wikipedia pages dedicated to the school, but there is not an insignificant amount of my peers and fellow alum that have attended the likes of Juilliard, Columbia, MIT, Drexel, and have even gone on to be credited in projects like Black Panther. Yes, THE Black Panther films. It blows my mind when I think about it too long, to be honest. Because I am one of those people, in a way. But we will get there. 

Now, in college, my art school continued through my Art History degree, which wasn’t even the original college plan. This history of my time in art school is just the top note in what is a very complex decade of my life that encompasses a large amount of my passion, education, experiences, hopes, and dreams. By the way, I didn’t start high school in the visual arts program, but in the theatre program, and graduated as a dual major in the visual arts and technology programs. So in case it hasn’t quite sunk in yet what I meant by a life lived, this is just the first example. Next week, I’ll be diving into these experiences just a bit more, and may even share some of my visual art portfolio at some point.

So, until next time—