Art School

For as long as I can remember I have desperately wanted only one thing: to be a mother. It seems that this is indeed a very likely thing for me to achieve in this life, although I am certainly not quite there yet. I thrill at the idea of becoming pregnant, at growing my own tiny little person inside of me. The long months we will have together, just the two of us before a little babe is brought into the world for me to hold and squeeze and cherish. That I will get to pick out an earthly name for this new person, and that he or she will be a little version of me (And the Mr. of course) and will grow and change every single day, always getting bigger and smarter. I anticipate days with little people running around my house, playing, laughing, learning. I look forward to giving advice, even discipline when needed, so that these children will know about the world, will know how to behave, will know the things that are the most important, and the things that are not. I do know that having children is bittersweet. That by creating these beings you are in essence allowing a portion of your heart to walk around outside of you. That they will get hurt, and that they can hurt you. But all these things combined, the happy and the sad, amount to an experience that I would not trade for my very life. I have been promised joy in my children, and I am so excited for that time in my life when I will bring children into this world and with the companionship of a loving husband raise them into grown people.

BUT.

I realized at some point in the past twenty-one years that even though motherhood will certainly be the position I hold for myself in the highest regard, it does not in fact equate to a career in the terms of the world. One does not receive a salary for raising children. And while I would love to have the luxury of focusing my time and energy on this one thing, I know that I can't sit idly by and just assume that the person I marry will automatically have the education and the career and the means to support me and our little brood without any financial contribution from me. That just wouldn't be fair at all. After coming to this decision I was faced with yet another dilemma. What is it that I can do to contribute that will allow me not only to still be available for my children when they come into the picture, but also that will fulfill me as a person and individual, not just solely as a mother. I've been thinking about this and contemplating my options for quite some time now. During high school I came to the solid conclusion that I was not about to waste my time and money on college right out of the gate when I wasn't even sure what I wanted my focus to be. And so I didn't. I graduated, and I worked. I made the money necessary to pay my bills by watching and teaching other people's children. This work is extremely fulfilling to me, but still I was unsettled at the thought of being a perpetual nanny. I love it now. There's nothing else I'd rather do as a job, that's for sure. But it's not a career. I know that some people make it work while raising their own children too, but for me it just doesn't sit quite right. There had to be something else. I tried out hair school. I like to make things pretty, like to make people feel good about themselves, this could work.. Nope. I hated it. I dropped out four months in. It just wasn't the right fit. I could let my ego be hurt, or feel ashamed at quitting something that maybe doesn't seem so hard, but really it was just something I tried and realized it wasn't for me. No harm, no foul. If I hadn't have tried it, I wouldn't have known that, and I'm grateful for that knowledge even if I don't appreciate the loan I'm still paying back..

Then a year or so ago I had the opportunity to work with a wonderful woman I met through church who has a business she runs out of her home making wedding invitations and matching favors and other stationary. For the most part my job consisted of applying adhesive to the backs of hundreds of identical pieces of cardstock and sticking them to hundreds more pieces of cardstock, assembling these great little invitations, some more involved than others. I tied ribbons, stuck labels on water bottles and boxes of candy, stuffed envelopes, and various other detail oriented tasks. After a few months of doing this I realized how much I really liked it, and even more so the level of my fascination with the invitations themselves. There was nothing more exciting than seeing an eight part, five dollar wedding invitation all completed, feeling the smooth crisp papers with bumpy embossed glossy ink, the matching name cards for tables, favors tied with corresponding ribbons. It was then that I decided I would very very much like to do something similar with my life. I thought about what that would mean for me on a day to day basis, thought about what I would need to do to get there, and what I really wanted there to actually be. What if I didn't just design and create wedding invitations, what if I designed and created all sorts of things! (I'm really getting excited now.) I could have the potential to work from home, make my own hours, own my own business, create beauty, make other people happy, and be totally happy with myself too. Jackpot. This feels right.

And that's where school comes in. I'm not the kind of person to just jump into any given task blind. Oh no, never. I'm one who truly appreciates rules and instructions. I will follow a specific list down to the very last detail and wouldn't dream of trying to do something I didn't actually know how to do. If there isn't an instruction manual or "proper way" of doing something, I think about it and plan it out and prepare to do it until I'm sure I can accomplish the task in a satisfactory way. So when it comes to the thing that I am going to be doing for the majority of my adult life to contribute to and support my family, this surely isn't a step I'm going to skip. Do it the right way, or don't do it at all. Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that I very much so operate by this mantra. I'll admit, I didn't do a whole ton of looking around at different schools and programs.. Shame on me, I know. I've had my eye on The Art Institute of Salt Lake City since I decided I was going to go to art school, and I think that even if I had found a program somewhere else I just wouldn't have felt like it was the best. I have a problem with this, always wanting the "best" things. But what can I say, I'm not ashamed of it. So what if I picked the most expensive art school I could find. Details? I spoke with an admissions advisor for about two and a half hours last week, sent in my high school transcripts, admissions essay, and some other paperwork and have now been officially accepted into the Graphic Design program. I am THRILLED.

School starts on January 10th. It's a 21 month program if I go full time (which I intend to do, yes.) and from the looks of it I will be working my butt off with 20 hours of school per week, just about that much on homework, as well as working a part time job to continue paying current bills and also whatever is leftover from pesky loans that I will be taking out by the bushelfull.. I am trying to stay positive and remind myself that I am in this 100% for the education and experience, and that if I truly felt like it wasn't worth the price I shouldn't and wouldn't be doing it. But I am. The program includes some really exciting classes like Color Theory, Typography (I get to design my own font! Cool!), Illustration, Marketing Design, Print Production, and even a Photography class that I'm pretty excited about since I've been hankering to take one of those since junior high. I am feeling a significant amount of anxiety about starting this whole thing, because it is going to be a big change for me. I'll be much busier than I have been probably since high school, and that was two and a half years ago. I'm going to have to relearn how to time budget so that I don't get stressed out of my mind and so that I can remember why I'm doing this in the first place. Aside from the anxiety though, I am pure excitement! One and three-quarters of a year really isn't that long at all, and when I'm finished I'll come out with a legitimate degree in Graphic Design and the tools I need to do something I'm really kicking to do.

Art School (life), here I come!

(Is it totally unattractive if I feel forty-seven times more awesome for being someone who is going/goes/went to art school? I'm just tooting my own horn this once, and then I promise to be totally humble from here on out. Yay art school!)