School started yesterday. I’m teaching one day a week for the whole summer. Foundation Drawing II. There are sixteen enrolled. A good number: not too many, not too small. But it’s Friday mornings at 8:30 am. Actually any morning class is a good excuse for an excuse. And Friday is a good excuse. As is Monday. And I suppose you could add in Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, if you like. So my job is, mainly, inspiration. Especially when it is a required course. Summer helps. It’s more relaxed. Students are usually taking a lighter load. But most of them have part- or even full-time jobs. There’s a lot of pressure on them.
But I still wonder all the time what drives someone to go to art school. There certainly isn’t much job security waiting for them. It seems a lot of the students come to the Art College because they think it is going to be easy, fun. And maybe it is for some. Maybe they don’t know what else to do after high school. But for a lot of them, it’s a shock that making art is work. For me, it’s my job. A possibly stressful job. A job with a lot of uncertainty. A job I love, certainly.
I met a fellow instructor in the slide library last week. She was returning to teaching after adopting a seven year old girl from Columbia (she already has a seven year old boy with her Columbian husband). She had been on maternity leave and decided to go back to teaching this summer because she was experiencing post-partum depression. The heavy load of the reality of taking care of a new child in the family, even though she was adapting well, and the lack of studio time for herself, was contributing to her feeling low. But she feels fine now, so she was wondering why she didn’t continue on maternity leave as long as she could. I suggested just the decision to get back to work helped her overcome her depression.
Work can do that. Especially work you love. Although I can still do a little (very little) work in my studio when the builders aren’t here, I’m looking forward to having my entire studio back soon. When my children were young and I was irritable, they used to tell me to “go paint.” They knew.
Posted by leya at May 13, 2006 08:21 AMOnce I got up enough oomph to send an e-mail, doing the three days a week volunteer work at the Research on Women center has definitely brightened up my outlook. It may also turn into a paying part time job. And, I assured the archivist that if my teaching job reemerged in the fall I'd be able to do both.
A structured life, with an outward focus, is a big help and probably a necessity for meaningful life.
Posted by: sue at May 13, 2006 09:35 PMCheers to you Leya on Mother's Day! Thank you Leya's children for telling her to go and paint when she needed to.
Posted by: Jackie at May 14, 2006 02:30 PM