"No lah it's okay. Just try your best"
"Okay"
Scrolled through my gallery of screenshots in my phone to recall the date on which I first received my themes for 6123/01. I remember it by a screenshot because it was the same day chongray collected his O level results and while wanting to send him a mushy congratulatory message I accidentally messaged it to my art teacher instead. Naturally I found it hilarious so I had to take a digital shot of the damn thing.
So yes back to the point. It was the 13th of January.
When we were handed the pieces of paper that stated all the rules and regulations along with six themes from which we could choose from I was so elated. There have only been a few rare moments in my life where a sudden surge of ideas have come running through my mind. Those few rare moments clustered within the subsequent two to three weeks. During sharing of our initial ideas in art class I was so excited to present what I had visualised and the rationale behind the individual components for my final art piece. Mr tan approved of it and I felt great.
But like all good things, the ecstasy dies down and you start to see the gaps.
I kept getting questioned if what I was doing was relevant to the theme. Why was I doing some things this way and not doing some things another...?
To be very honest I was pretty pissed.
I had gone on many photo taking excursions with chongray in the span of about two months and spent quite a bit of time and cash editing and processing the photos. I had drawn numerous sketches, went to get them enlarged (which by the way costs $4 to enlarge an A4 sketch to an A0 one). I cut, pasted, altered and when I was done, I looked at my huge collage of ideas and I didn't understand what I was doing. It was the worst feeling to feel so dissatisfied.
It was until a month ago when we were doing mounting of our sketches onto our black prep boards that I realised how deep the hole I had placed myself in was. There were a handful with boards so beautifully adorned with skillfully done sketches and then there was me; e m p t y s p a c e s e v e r y w h e r e
Mentioned in an earlier post, I left the art room almost in tears.
Bumped into friends I had promised to spend mid-autumn celebration with having to explain why I couldn't stay. I told them I was going to fail my O level art.
That weekend I stayed home and spent about a collective 10 hours or so doing up sketches for my empty spaces. I didn't complete all the 17 I had set out to do but I completed 10 and that was good enough for me. There is a terrible anxiety that overcomes my body once in a while and it paralyses me. In a somewhat physical sense too because nausea will wash over me and I just end up feeling really sick.
Post-worst weekend of the year: september holidays.
We had a long day in the art room last monday with us occupying our individual areas from 8am to about 5pm. Mr tan decided I shouldn't put it off any longer and said I had to add in my human figures. I willfully put all my energy into painting my two little beings in three hours and although it is now pretty laughable, I was pretty darn proud of myself. But then mr tan asked me to bring my canvas over and said
"I'm not trying to offend you in any way but looking at your entire piece right now, I think it's barely a B"
For some weird reason I wasn't instantly crushed but instead I just stood there and listened to him as he told me how to totally paint over everything I had just done. I told myself it was alright. He said it would bump up my grade, yes? Okay so let's just do it.
And I did it. More or less. I completed 6123/01 on the 16th of September.
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I'm in no way trying to brag but I'm just going to say it: I'm proud of myself.
There were a couple of instances where I just wanted to drop the entire subject. Once was somewhere in april where I really did want to give up but I lacked the guts to tell mr tan and both my sister and dad didn't think it was worth it. Another time was about one-two months ago when I was struggling like mad with my canvas.
So yes that's the back story. Not that I really need to justify why I feel proud of myself.
Although the journey is still far from over (6123/02 is coming up quite soon) I think I've already picked up quite a few pieces of valuable information.
1) Art students (not necessarily including myself) are one of the most strong-willed bunch of people ever
2) Art is lazy and that's what makes it so amazing. Nobody ever includes their weaknesses in their work. Everybody wants to utilise their strengths. So when forced to conform to certain guidelines, artist make do with what they're good at and twist it to captivate audience attention. They don't go and work on their weaknesses because nobody has time for that.
3) Everytime I had to do art, I kept thinking about a life where I hadn't chosen to take the subject up and I made it seem to myself that it is actually quite possible to go back in time to change the decisions I made. I think regret makes you delusional. Anywho the thing is: never regret anything because at a certain point of time, it was exactly what you wanted. So just do your damn best.
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