People often ask me if I went to art school, so now I'm going to tell you everything about that.
Yes,I went to art school for seven years. I started with art high school (in Italy we have schools divided by major) when I was 15 years old. Then I attended an academy of fine arts for three years and a half, but I never graduated. I was lucky and I got scholarships for the three years and I lived in a dormitory.
Going to art school is a journey. There are so many things you can learn, but you can only do it if you're open to it. You grow a lot as a person and as an artist, but only if you really want it. The problem with me is that when I started to go to the academy of fine arts, it was just my second choice. After failing the my dream university entrance exam, I was very scared. You can only make an entrance exam attempt per year. I didn't want to spend that year at home because it would've been too depressing so I decided to go to the academy for only one year and then attempt the entrance exam for the other university again.
I didn't really like that academy to begin with. It was ugly not well kept. Its structure was literally falling apart. The organisation awful, but the first was the best year. I felt free because I thought I wasn't going to stay and happy because I met so many beautiful people. The best people I've ever met in my life.
A year passed and I had to make a decision. I was scared again. I remember the feeling of the first time I placed my feet in the other university building. I wanted to go to that school but it also felt so different from what I was used to and uncomfortable just so out of my comfort zone. Everything looked cold. When I entered the academy I just felt comfortable, it felt like home because it was a familiar environment as I was already coming from an art school. I wanted to follow my real vocation at that moment, but I felt scared and very conflicted. At the end I convinced myself that I didn't need to change school because at the academy everything was easy and warm and comfortable.
People started to tell me "what if you regret it? You started already so just finish it! Are you sure you're going to make it to the other univeristy?"So I stayed.
From this point on everything started to decline. Because I started to feel depressed I was doing something I didn't really wanted to do all day long. Art school is challenging I had to stay there from 8/9 in the morning till 5 in the afternoon. It was a constant challenge to myself. I felt like the teachers wanted me to be like a creativity machine they wanted ideas over ideas and it was more than I could do, so I started to sort of black out. It was like I couldn't think. When people talked to me I couldn't understand what they were saying to me it was like I could hear they voices, but I couldn't make sense of what they were talking about it was a very weird feeling. I couldn't focus on anything I wasn't myself anymore. I started to talk even less and isolating myself more. It became gradually worst and I couldn't graduate on time so I lost my scholarship and my place in the dormitory. I had to pay the school expenses with the last money I had left from my scholarship and I had to go back home.
To go to the academy I had to go to the bus stop before the sunrise take 4 buses for four to five hours per day and I would come back home at 10 in the evening. Sometimes I stayed with my grandmother, but I definitely burned out.
Since I could no longer support my studies I only had that year to pass all my exams, to write the thesis and graduate. I was so stressed. My art teacher changed and he was completely different from my previous one. He wanted different things that I didn't even know how to do and I didn't have time to learn. I had to make two big oil paintings, a big self portrait and a huge canvas for my thesis, but I couldn't paint anymore because of the huge pressure and stress. I was having a lot of bad thoughts so I somehow switched off my brain and stopped thinking. My mind was completely blank. Every time I sat in front of the canvas to paint I had anxiety/panic attacks. I never had them before. Since my mind was blank I sort of forgot how to paint or draw, because I couldn't think on how to do it. All I worked in my life disappeared. I am nothing without art. Imagine doing something for your whole life and imagine it disappearing all of a sudden.
At that time everything felt permanent, it felt definitive. It was terrible. I was like a zombie. I was only sad. I had anxiety attacks everytime I attempted to paint,I cried every night. My chest hurt, I couldn't breathe. I couldn't bear with that anymore so I stopped painting and for my own sake I left the academy of fine art. It was so difficult to make that choice. I knew I would've disappointed a lot of people, but I decided to stop doing all the thing that made me suffer and made me feel miserable.
I have many regrets. I regret I didn't leave before all of that happen. I regret that since I decided to stay I didn't study harder, I couldn've learnt more. I regret I didn't change my art teacher. He was a good artist, but that doesn't make you automatically a good teacher. He would say us a lot of nasty things to "test" our will to become artists, when the only thing we really needed was guidance. He wouldn't let us drawing the male model because for him artist women should think like men. He probably thought that acting like that would motivate us to make a better job in order to prove him wrong,but that never worked for me. I really don't know why I stayed. After leaving I didn't paint for a long while. Then I started all over again. Little by little.
It's been few years I still can't paint with oils. I still can't go back to the academy I still feel like I disappointed everyone and I still feel like a failure. I still can't face people and that pitiful look in their eyes. I am still miserable. It's been so long, but I'm not recovered from that. I always kept all of that to myself. Everyone else was stressed too, everyone was going through hard times too, but the only one to drop out was me. I'm sad I din't have the mental strenght to go on just like the others, I felt and feel very mad at myself because I became such a weak person.
And that was my experience with art school. I only have one advice for you. Don't make second choices. They would never make you feel 100% happy. And you will never be 100% motivated to do the best you can. If you must do that have an open minded and embrace your choice with no regrets otherwise you'll end like me. Choose the things that make you really happy. Art school is not a bad place to be if going to art school is a thing you really want to do. I still learned so much and I experienced many things I wouldn't have otherwise. The best and most precious thing of art schools are the classmates and the people you meet. You will learn the most from them. They are part of the beautiful memories that I will always treasure in my heart.
I used to watch your youtube religiously as a kid. You had a crazy impact on my art journey. I'm in university studying fine arts now, and still often refer to you as my favorite artist. I hope you're doing well wero :)
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