Scene Fifty-Five: SART

My inner debate was ruthless, but in the end I won. Foregoing more "practical" academic pursuits, namely those which would pave the popular path to med school, I am taking Studio Art 15- Drawing I. The work load is infamously monumental. And I love ever stroke of it.

Ever since I developed the motor skills necessary to grasp a mark-making tool, my imagination has galloped across the walls, canvases, physics tests, and sidewalks of my life. More recently I found a love of collage-making and incorporating found items into otherwise more traditional pieces. I'm a magpie, it's said: I pick up bits of string and broken umbrellas and anything else I can carry home. Sometime I may be able to use it, after all.

This seems simple enough: I make art, I should study art. But it isn't that easy. As dearly as I love rendering my own reality out of items that belong to another, I don't see how that benefits anyone other than myself, and I can't stand the thought of existing without improving others. For all that I am, selfish is not in my repertoire.

But what of it? After some much-needed perspective adjustment (enter a nod to Ayn Rand) I determined that even from selfish acts can others benefit. So I'm elbow-deep in charcoal and shredded paper, spending hours staring down a junky heel and some ferns on pedestals. Translating, sheet by sheet, my mind to paper. Enjoy.

© Copyright Callista Womick 2010