It's because I'm an Art Major

The Acrobat

From trapeze to
to trapeze, in the hush that
that follows the drum roll's sudden pause, through
through the startled air, more swiftly than
than his body's weight, which once again
again is late for its own fall

Solo. Or even less than solo,
less, because he's crippled, missing
missing wings, missing them so much
that he can't miss the chance
to soar on shamefully unfeathered
naked vigilance alone.

Arduous ease,
watchful ability,
and calculated inspiration. Do you see
how he waits to punce in flight; do you know
how he plots from head to toe
against his very being; do you know, do you see
how cunningly he weaves himself through his own former shape
and works to seize this swaying world
by stretching out the arms he has conceived -

beautiful beyond belief at this passing
at this very passing moment that's just passed

~ Wislawa Szymborska

The very first quarter of Community college, almost three years ago, I took Intro to Lit, Music Theory 1 and Drawing Technique... I think... anyway it was a 100 level drawing class.
I reflected that first day that I knew I would like my Lit class. The teacher seemed pretty cool. The worst part was going to be the other students who were taking it just to fulfill a requirement. I was going to be one of the geeky ones who actually enjoyed the coursework. But I knew I would fit in with the other geeks, so it was all cool.
I discovered that music theory is my favorite language. It came more naturally to me than learning to read words or numbers. And I love music people.
The art class was a puzzling phenomenon. I didn't have a lot of experience in formal education, but anyone who has taken a studio art class knows that they are a little different, just by their nature and structure. But I was okay with that after the initial scary plunge of having to actually draw in front of a teacher and ten or fifteen other persons who are "the artistic one" in their family or school. The really difficult part is that art students are weird.

First of all, there is that stereotype. Walk through my community college art department and there is no denying that this exists. It is a very diverse look, but in a way they are also all the same. There are the angry looking ones with eyes that have no light or sparkle in them. They look a little hunted, solitary. In other classes, they sit in the back, don't talk to anyone, and make fabulous doodles all over their notebooks instead of taking notes. (Have to admit, I am guilty of that last one, except I keep mine in the margins and they are far from fabulous.) They are the kids who can't major in anything else because everything else is too objective. They can't deal with anything that has right or wrong answers. They don't know what to do with their lives. Losers, back sliders and renegades major in art.
Of course, that is only a stereotype. You see a lot less of them at AQ. But there is always that loneliness in art. You may create with the whole history of society and culture behind you, but ultimately, you create alone. Most art students I know prefer to work alone. It's a very personal battle with whatever you are creating. There are no study groups. It takes us a long time to learn how to talk about each other work or even our own. In many ways, as with all art forms, there simply is no language.

There is a poem about an acrobat that I studied in that first Lit Class. The acrobat almost kills himself because he is seeking a beauty he is incapable of achieving. He is missing wings. The best he can do is "falling with style," like Buz Lightyear. Art is like that. Sometimes you are just trying to translate what you see, in life or in your head, into something else on the outside world, paper or clay or paint. Everything is against you. You are not God. You just can't will things into being. Even when you have the skills necessary, something is always missing: that part of myself that I can't quite make present: The acrobat's wings. And this makes art students retreat into themselves. No one else can do this for us, tell us how to do it, or even tell us when we have done it. Out in the big scary world, people like us starve because we have to create, and no one understands. The people who make money at it are not necessarily the ones who have wings. There really is no measuring stick. They are haunted and they are hunters. It's a little scary.
I walked away from that first art class thinking, "I can never fit into this group of people. I could never be an art major. It's a good thing I'm majoring in music."
Two years later, one morning towards the end of last semester I realized that I was wrong. I woke up and realized I am an art major.

I've been trying to avoid it for years. Please, no! Anything but that! I knew I was going to study art in some capacity. But even when I was thinking of double majoring, I would say English and Music, even though music was going to be my minor. I still referred to myself as an English major for some of this last semester. English may be the perfectly useless degree, but statistically, English majors get jobs. Music may be a similar dead end as far as money goes. But Music majors can at least commiserate with each other. They are all singing the same songs! And we all wish we could pay them a little more.
Art is so lonely. I have bounced between the three most pathetic majors a college can offer and landed at last on the most disturbing of the bunch.

But hiding it does no good. I should just get over the fact that eight out of ten people are not going to understand; probably nine our of ten. People are going to worry about me. People I meet are going to make assumptions about me. I'll be plagued with all sorts of comments that are akin to racism in their ignorance and obnoxiousness, and yet the speaker is almost always completely unconscious of having said anything annoying. It doesn't matter. I'm going to fly. So I'm not going to have an identity crisis about it anymore.