Humor In The Strangest Places

I imagine every school has that class or major where the students band together to survive, or simply just like to hangout. Yeah, my major is like that, but not in the traditional "we like to party" sense. Because we all work in programs regularly that only a couple of us can actually afford, when classes end in the evening, we usually end up together. Not all of us may be doing work for the same class--although many times, that's very much the case--but we're all in it together.

So what do a bunch of sleep deprived computer nerds do to pass the time together, you ask? Well... :D

There are several things that end up going on in our lab. Most of it includes youtube in some fashion. There's the occasional tone-deaf sing-along and the grumpy "old" man who screams "SHUT UP YOU NOISY KIDS!" Hehe, just a joke (kind of). And then you have people from other majors who wander in and ask for you to show them your latest work. They get all googly-eyed and then go back to their own major's hells.

And then... you have the odd ones in other majors who give rides home only to their friends and ultimately pick and chose who they consider to be a friend. They may even create their own monologue in the process, deciding who gets to ride in their car and who gets hung out to dry. I kidd you not.

And then of course, the humor doesn't end when you actually get into class either. Since artists are visual, sometimes the professors use visual aides like a piece of chocolate to describe the layers of HTML code. Even better, I find are the times when students' minds have obviously been elsewhere and they start talking about their favorite TV shows and outrageous findings. Among them are subjects like Twilight porn and how high that pile of cat shit was in "that dude's" apartment on Hoarders the night before (right after lunch no less).

Art students have no shame. They are taught to let ideas flow and never kill even the most ridiculous thought right away. Their mental filter has been turned off, so they talk about everything and anything, and expect other students and their professors to join in. And the funniest part is, hardly anyone ever notices that normal people aren't like that. In Art school, everything is fair game, so be sure to laugh at the craziest of it.

~ C.Mitchell

Finals that Never End

I've been told that for the normal college student, finals are like hell. And while I can relate in some ways, I can honestly say that in most ways I really can't. In art school, there's normally a period of maybe the first week where you get some really minor stuff to do and you still have time to eat normal meals, sleep eight hours, bathe as long as you want to, and get ready for a new semester. And then because everything seems so minor, you put stuff off... and then you get behind. And then when the professors start piling it on, you're still swimming in the small stuff, so you're struggling to pull off the bigger stuff. And thus, the endless lack of sleep begins.

In normal colleges, you have homework, and you even have a few quizes, but you don't really study until you have to take the test. And you'd think, "Well art school is the same, right? You have a big project and then you have like a week or two to do another one."

There are classes like that. Sculpture is one of them. The beginning class consists of several very small projects to start out (not more than a couple hours each), and then three larger projects. All of them are back to back, but not overlapping. In the other departments, however, this is not the case. Many professors want you to learn a technique and practice it while they assign a larger project.

In painting for example, in a single week (all due the very next week), I was assigned a color wheel, five small paintings (each taking maybe 2-3 hours), and a large scale personal project (on 4' x 5' canvas), as well as to finish the painting I was working on in class. You may think, "Well, yeah, but you had a whole week." True. Very true, especially since I only had class once a week. However, keep in mind this wasn't my only class. And the class was oil painting. Yes "oil." Oil takes several days, even weeks to dry completely. Couple that with trying to transport it all, and you've got a massive pain in the butt. Now imagine that, but with more classes. While this was going on, one week I had to study for two tests, sculpt and make clothing for an armature character (from scratch) for my stop motion animation course, and finish carving the body for a self rendering in sculpture.

That said, it was the easiest semester I have ever had at this school.

The hardest semester I've ever had in this school was when I put two liberal studies together with a film course, a digital animation & effects course, and a digital photography class. There would be days when I would be on the computer doing homework for 20 hours, and be awake for a total of 23. And then I would get up the next day, take a shower and go to class, only to realize that I would have to do the same thing the next night. In fact, it was a normal ritual that between Tuesday and Thursday I hardly slept at all. And as finals approached and I had to film and edit, I found myself staying up even longer. The free time I had was spent sitting in on training sessions with actors and my fight choreographer, spending a few precious minutes with my boyfriend, and sleeping. What made it even worse was the intense nature of a professor in my major that I saw three times a week. I was so exhausted that I was ill for much of the semester. I ate about half of what I normally did, and I was constantly frustrated and stressed. There weren't enough hours in a day to get everything done, so I made time. I borrowed it from the nights I should've been in bed, and even a time or two when I should've been in class. And since I hadn't had time to clean my room in so long, I ended up doing my work on my bed instead of at my desk. I started to associate my bed with work, and I started to despise it... as crazy as that sounds. But no matter how crazy it got, things always end eventually. And while I'm still so crazy pissed about the last digital photography project I had to do (at the last minute) that to this day I have trouble looking at the images--even though a good lot of them include my boyfriend--life goes on. And while we always say, "If I could do it over, things would be different," the truth is that they probably wouldn't be. All you can do is work until you break down and cry, and then just keep working. Because when it's all over, regardless of professor's opinions, disses and encouragements from classmates, and the help of all the people who helped you along the way... the only thing that really matters is whether you like how it turned out. And no matter how sleep deprived and miserable you were, did you at least laugh a little in the meantime? Because no matter what the circumstances, I find that if a person has both love and humor in their life, they can endure. That's always how college should be. I know that's how it is for me.

~C.Mitchell

Artist & Patron

No matter how long I stay in art school, there is something I will never get used to, or even understand. There are constant art openings, and as a result regular art openings for the college sponsors/patrons are held. During these events, students are shoed away from the front entrance and made to keep away from all the rich people dressed up in fancy clothes. And while they walk around all high and mighty, gawking at student art and drinking lots of wine, the students themselves are greeted by locked doors. There was once a time that I actually entered in the main hall during one of these events, and got weird looks from many of the patrons.

Now, you may be thinking, "Well yeah, it's a suit and tie event." But I never understood why we weren't allowed to attend these events, being that many of the students were the artists for these pieces. What's more, you have to remember that each person pays about $30,000 a year to go to school here. Being that there's at least one day every month that we can't even get in the front door because of these events, I would call that an insult. But that's just how art is. Art is a luxury item, therefore we cater to the rich and turn away the poor. And everyone wants to take a bite out of the artist. It's difficult enough to get your work into a private art gallery, but once you do manage to get in, the gallery takes about half of the money from every piece you sell. So, in other words, if someone sells a painting for say $900, the artist will get less than $500. No wonder you hear all the time about starving artists.

Where the real money is, is from commissioned works. These are opportunities that the artist gets to build up their portfolio, make a solid pay check without involving a third party, and learn how to deal with people. The downside is the lack of freedom. Because it's a commission, you have to do what your customer wants, which may not be anything like what you want to do. But money is money, and sometimes you can't be picky. On the flip side, digital artists have it a little different. We get even less love because we can't physically tack anything up on the walls. Everything is computerized, and usually the only commissions we get are web related or requests to do family slide shows. Our real success comes from internships. So in the end, no matter the major, we all just hope that our stuff is good enough to land something. That's all you can hope for. And in the mean time, don't be afraid to make faces behind the snobby patrons' backs. It'll make you feel just a little better.

~ C.Mitchell

Sex on Canvas

I'm going to put a cautionary note that this may not be suitable for people under the age of 18, but it's not like I can stop you from reading, so use your best judgement.

When I first got into art school, I thought that I would be learning how to paint and draw from life. I figured I might get a model at some point, but I really had no idea what to really expect. After all, "art school" is a really vague term. But as I sat down in my first class with the most obscure name in the world (Idea Process Criticism), I began to think, this might actually be fun. And then they asked, "Draw ten things you think of when I say the word, 'love,' and then write ten words for the same thing." And so I innocently drew a heart and probably a smiley face, and god knows what other flowery things. And then I wrote a couple words like "soul mates." And then after about twenty minutes she had us tack our results up on the walls. What I was greeted with, I was not ready for. Clearly, the rest of the word had converted itself into the art school environment long before I had, because if I could count the number of penises on that bulletin board, I would need more than two hands. And the class seemed to continue to challenge me like that. Now, you may laugh, but it sure as hell didn't end there. In fact, this one little shocking moment was just the tip of the ice berg. Not even half a semester later, I was in a printmaking class and there was a girl who's entire body of works related to her vagina. It was extremely graphic, and so the one or two boys in that class spent the entire critique attempting to be fascinated with the sink next to her, only to squirm when they were finally asked what they thought of her piece. The fact is, sex is a huge part of art culture. For women, it's called feminist art, which is in my opinion a load of crap. Whether its a painting symbolizing a sexual organ or a photograph of a nude woman, there is no censor here. Even in my film class, my instructor has a strange fetish for sex. Pull out a hot dog, a bun, pour sauce on it, and you've got a dude sticking "it" in a girl (yes, there really was an animation like that). But no matter how uncomfortable you are with the idea of talking about sex in a public setting... after a while, it's just water under the bridge like everything else. Although, I have to say that I still have trouble looking my thirty-some year-old art history professor in the eyes when he starts talking about how this one patron Saint statue was supposed to be having an orgasm.

Still, I have never had anyone, teacher or student, come up to me and tell me to do something sexual in my pieces. People in art college are far more perceptive than people outside it. While they may not spare you from the conversations, they can tell if you aren't really into it. Tell that to an all-conforming state school and you might get thrown out for failure to become a mindless drone. I jest, but it's kind of true. But my real point is, even within the very real insanity that is art school, there is a small form of maturity that can't be found anywhere else. And once you attend an art college, you will never be the same again.

~ C.Mitchell

The Art School Weapon Policy ~ Safety Third

I once saw an episode of Dirty Jobs (one of my favorite TV programs :D ) that explained how many of the jobs they did required them to not put safety first. If they did, they would never do the job in the first place. So they adopted the policy of "Safety Third." In my opinion, this may apply to art school as well. Many of the tasks we deem as dangerous, we still end up doing anyway, knowing full well that we could lose a finger, an eye, or cut our hands open and bleed everywhere in a matter or seconds. And yet, I have only ever come across one person here who is really very worried about it. Meet Jackie, or at least, that's what I'm going to call her. She's afraid of everything... germs, sand paper, machinery in the shop, chemicals, carpal tunnel, and even detached retinas from staring at the computer screen too long. She wants to be an animator.

I'll wait until this sinks in....

But really, even around cold season, she wears masks just like they do in China and Japan. But before you start to pick on her like we do, you should know that she likely had a very traumatic experience when she was younger which makes up for a good portion of why she fears so much. And a lot of things (whether they exceed the boundaries of common sense or not) are actually very real dangers. But what I never quite understood was, if she was so afraid, why go to art school? In an ordinary school, there are tens of majors that are perfectly safe to chose from. And yet, with all her fears, I once saw her take sculpture (only a semi-dangerous class) and metals (an extremely dangerous class) at the same time. And while I saw her carving away at a piece of foam with a 6" razor, I began to think... Forget about all the in class dangers. Did we even have a weapons policy at our school?

In light of Virgina Tech, Columbine, and the other places where insane people with guns have seen fit to go on a rampage, I am almost completely certain that most every normal college has instated a "no weapons policy."

So I looked through our handbook (given I probably didn't read it word for word, but who would?), and though it mentioned drug policies, emergency tornado drills, and even prohibited items in the dorms, nowhere did it mention a weapons policy. The only thing prohibited in the dorms were: waterbeds, weight lifting equipment, pets, heavy objects that can damage the already decrepit floor, candles, alcohol, and other fire hazards. So then I got to thinking...

Was it even possible to institute a "weapons policy" in our school? Uh... not really. In fact, make that a, "Hell No!" Why? At any given time, any or all students in the school may have anything from a 1" x-acto knife to a box cutter in their daily classroom supplies. I once even had two 6" razors in my backpack for an entire semester, along with a 1" x-acto. And you're probably going, "Well, holy shit!" But the reason we have them is because classes require them. In my case, it was a sculpture class (the same one as Jackie). I had to carve foam for half the semester, hence the razors. But even Freshman are required to carry x-acto blades, and many people carry box cutters for their own personal convenience. And yet, even with all the insane people in my school, no one has thought to use them for anything other than their academic purpose. And that also includes the film department which have been known to use "fake" guns as props for movies.

My theory is that we are constantly faced with the fear of losing a finger or a hand by means of our own stupidity or sleep deprivation (as even my roommate accidently cut off the tip of a finger one weekend working on an illustration project). Even chemical burns and extreme allergic reactions are a total possibility. We know the dangers, so we live in reality every day, and we know not to go looking for extra trouble (although, now that I've said that, just watch, next semester someone's going to go ballistic). But really, I do think so. And if we truly need an outlet, we can paint, animate, draw, sculpt, etc. God knows, there is plenty that can go wrong in this school without adding malicious intent to the mix.

~C.Mitchell