I had a high school art teacher whom I used to bump into in my 20’s say to me, “I’m so sorry I suggested you go to that school.” She’d drop her head into her hand and look genuinely distressed. See, she had recommended a state college that had a strong art program. I went and stayed exactly one semester, having gone there sight unseen.
But she didn’t need to apologize, I didn’t go there because of her. I went because I received pressure from my father because they were a Big 10 school and he liked sports. I also didn’t get into the ivy league I applied to, and my state school was verboten. The art program for U of M was solid, the student life was active, and I participated fully in everything (except Greek life), but I left because it just wasn’t for me.
This same teacher also went on to apologize because she offered criticism during my high school art class, showing me different ways to get energy and movement into my art. She’d lean over with an eraser and just have at it, “this needs more motion!” she’d say, and I’d watch in awe as she quickly stripped away layers and layers of colored pencil work with her huge eraser, just like that. This technique stayed with me like a gift, as I got bolder in destroying, then remaking, works into something better (see example of ‘reconciling paradox’ here).
I also never accepted this apology, because I never felt badly about her criticism. I just took her good advice and carried on. She was right. She was my earliest art teacher.
In my adult years while working as a waitress, this same teacher told me I’d do better if I just “picked one thing” and did that. This was perhaps very good advice from any teacher to a student, because, how can you gain mastery at anything if you roam around the fields, dabble and play, dip your toes in and screech them out fast running away? That’s exactly how I live my life. One full-on new career after another, one more dabbling, one more dump and run… Until now, when I feels it’s time for recollection.
Later at my chosen college, I met a student who did art like Paul Klee, and he said to me with a bemused smile, “are you an art dilettante?” I didn’t answer, but kind of liked the question. It’s known this word dilettante has both positive and negative connotations. See the Italians thought it meant ‘lover of the arts,’ but the French turned the meaning more toward ‘superficial amateur.’ I think they can both be true, but to truly love art, it’s hard to be shallow.
So what does this have to do with collections? I have only poorly taken slides, converted into digital images, thrown up here as only proof of what was (art CV here). I haven’t done analog art for art’s sake in decades. Collections are things we hold to, maybe personas, maybe contacts, maybe things. In my case, I think it’s identities. Ones I’ve lived as, and ones I’ve made things as. Kind of like a Phoenix, except, I don’t like my hair catching fire or rising that high.
Every one of us is a collection of lives of sorts: our student lives, our single lives, our married lives, our parenting lives, our many monikers & pen names, travelers in time, adventurers, makers and the made objects and digital streams we leave…
The art of living means you know you are just this, a collection and a collector of sorts. In Italian, I think this means you see and experience great works, and by appreciating them, you make them your own in a way, because they touch you. That’s how I see it anyway. Being “touched,” another term that can mean a great many things. lol
