Last night, I watched "Daria: is it college yet?" It was pretty damned hilarious. Of course, I love Daria but the funny thing about it is that I could relate to so much of it. Okay, I relate to a lot of animated and comic book stuff. But it got me thinking, too. Even though I may not be traditional college age, which more and more I am starting to think is a good thing, a lot of the frustration of that whole process is a pretty universal thing.
And I really sort of liked the whole subplot of "should I study art or not, why do I need someone else telling me how to do my art" which touched on my current sentiments. Combined with the general angst from my colossal failure at Valley, and my inability to maintain Columbia due to that whole lack-of-a-home, lack-of-a-job thing that was going on at the time, is this lurking feeling that I may be a "sell out" if I study art academically.
That's an oversimplification, of course, because I'm beyond the point of such black and white things as being a sell out, but it can be hard to get instructed in something as visceral as one's art work. This becomes fuzzy with the wealth of bad teachers and self aggrandizing elitism. But does that mean it's always a bad thing? Or does that mean it's entirely a bad thing?
I don't know. I honestly don't.
I do know that I would like to see a happy balance. I'm proud of the work I do but would like to improve. I like the dimensions that were added to my painting by taking all that design shit. I don't like how it killed my enthusiasm for making flash movies. It's crucial to have a balance.
So today, we did some exploring of Dearborn. We went by the community college.
Wow, talk about different vibe from Valley.
For one thing, it actually looks like a real college campus, not a high school. They have a ton of facilities that you would expect on a campus, too.
Then the student body. Near as I can tell, there weren't an overabundance of seventeen year olds, and I didn't notice an inordinate amount of backwards baseball caps or bitchy blondes. Nor did I notice a lot of bland, middle aged housewives, or "I just don't want to be a janitor anymore" sorts. I mean, I'm sure there's some of that, but most of the people in the art building looked, well, like artists.
And it was an actual building dedicated to the arts...drawing, theatre, photography...not just a few classrooms, with a wing for all the computer stuff.
And they actually had a gallery.
This was where I became really impressed.
There was some pretty good artwork. It was everything from photography to installations. It was actually a very good show. I mean, it was technically good. But more than that it was all pretty innovative, very unique and creative stuff. That's fairly encouraging since the only thing keeping me from taking art classes is a fear that I'd be creatively stifled. But I really didn't see any of that going on. I saw photograph and wood sculptured renditions of an old woman holding a skull, I saw abstract experiments in lighting and color manipulation, I saw large, metal sculptures...I had seen some okay work periodically at Valley but nothing that was consistently good the way this was. And that was very reassuring.
In a good mood, we headed over to UM Dearborn.
Eek.
Rob was sad. His alma mater was in disrepair. Many of the things he loved were gone, and the student body was lacking in any sense of vitality whatsoever.
We walked around for awhile, then left. I found it ironic: I had bemoaned that I couldn't go to UM without going to the community college first, and here the community college was actually a ton more appealing.
We then went to a really awful coffeehouse on Monroe street. The coffee was vile, and in these weak paper cups (I'm sorry, if I'm going to spend three bucks on a pretentious beverage, then you can hire a dishwasher and give it to me in a real cup.) that seemed like they'd fall apart and spill all over you at any moment. My cappucino tasted like steamed milk and nothing else. There were also these obsessive compulsive messages all over the cafe. There were endless notes about no loitering, no kids, no smoking, no outside food and drinks. But not just one note for each. They were everywhere and they were in these ugly, neon yellow and red colors.
The worst was in the bathroom though.
"If you sprinkle when you tinkle, please be neat and wipe the seat."
Oh, how fucking charming!
I didn't even finish my "cappucino", it was that bad.
We headed home.
On Friday, I'm going to visit Wayne. There's also a school in Livonia I want to check out, but I'm not holding my breath over that one. I don't mind, though. I feel good about what I've found thus far. I'm seriously considering henry ford community college. Since I'm indecisive, it couldn't hurt to build up my number of credits and expand my options. Besides, it's cheap enough that it would give me the chance to explore different things, dabble a bit, without it having a severe effect on my finances or debts.
