Getting All Philosophical About Art Again.

So for those who don't know, I changed my major back to psychology. Basically
1) I'll be done way faster, which means 2) I'll borrow less money and 3) I like art, but half the time when I am doing assignments and projects, I don't see it as art; it's just completing a task. As one of my instructors put it to me (with a sigh) "that's just the nature of art school" - so I decided to (once again) stop. I think hope, that this time, I won't worry about what I left behind. There was always that "what if" surrounding my decision to leave the art institute. Now, I can say that while I like making art, wading through the politics of it is simply not worth it enough for me.

A friend in Colorado, after telling him that I had quit the institute, said to me something along the lines of, "it's better that you got out before it killed that in you" - that being the innocence of it all...thinking that you can actually just make art for art's sake....that technical skills and talent matter... He had graduated from an art institute, and it was years before he was able to find the artist in him again - in fact, I believe he still is recovering it and it's somehow older, more skeptical than it used to be. I've found that to be true of many art institute graduates that I know.

It reminds me of my faith journey where you start out so innocent. Somewhere along the line though, you get knocked around and realize that things aren't as you believed, and you learn to toughen up. Then, once you realize how hard you are, though you do your best to become soft again, you know you'll never go back to that place where you really believe in the simplicity and purity of it all.

So then, art can be the one area of my life where I am fine to stay a child.