1. Is that your sketchbook? Can I open it?

What, this? No, this is a completely inconsequential book with nothing interesting in it at all, that you also cannot open, now give it back to me.

2. It must be nice not having real homework.

You know what, it is! And someday I’m going to get paid to do my “not work” while you’re still doing whatever it is that makes you so bitter.

3. Anyone can make art.

Well, yes. You see, both of us are paying thousands of dollars to practice doing different things, until we practice it enough that a university gives us a piece of paper saying we know enough about how to do it. If you spend four years doing anything, you gain proficiency; that’s how college works.

4. So you can’t handle "real" work.

No, I found something I liked to do and thought “hmm, perhaps I should continue to study this thing that I like instead of things I don’t like as much.” I can’t speak for other artists, but I will say that if you give me a textbook and your calc homework, and I give you a pencil, paper, and still life, in an hour only one of us will have made actual progress.

5. Art is so subjective your grades must be easy.

No, that’s not how it works. People seem to think because a minimalist modern painting of a blob on a piece of canvas exists, that it’s a valid response to any artistic endeavor. That’s the equivalent of writing “in fourteen hundred ninety-two Columbus sailed the ocean blue” on every essay you received in any history class. Great, concise, relevant in perhaps some situations, but completely irrelevant to most courses.

This one gets to me the most not because I’m offended, but because it’s so far removed from how things actually work. I just don’t understand. Why are people so interested in the subjectivity of art as a grading point? Is this some sort of niche I’m unaware of? If my grades are easier, what does that have to do with anything? The whole point of art is making things that are well crafted and visually interesting, so as long as I can do that, why does the point system for grading matter?

6. Will you make me something?

I love you, I do. I also love art, but I got stuff to do, so unless you want to pay for my expensive AF materials and time, it’s gonna be a cool minute.

7. Did you really make that?

Yes. It was hard and time-consuming. And I’m going to explain the process using big words and specific terminology that you don’t know so I can feel smart because I literally never get to talk about this to other people.

Also, thank you so much for any compliment anyone has ever given me for my work. I know my skills, but I do also need constant validation.

8. But, like, art isn’t necessary.

Listen.

Listen, you sweet, precious baby child.

Everything needs art. TV shows, logos, animations, clothing, video games, packages, cars, jerseys, machinery, websites, bedding, commercials, computers, phone apps, karaoke machines, hats, paintings, flyers, shoes, street signs, chairs, books, baskets, billboards, step ladders, photographs, furniture, skateboards, I could go on.

Artists don’t invent everything, but they help produce just about everything you interact with. Why? Because if you don’t have a "style,” you have a preference, even if you don’t know that you do. People like things that look nice, people pay more for things that look nice, that conform to their preconceived notions of how things should look.

If art isn’t necessary then why for the past few thousand years do we, as humans, continue to make room for it? Tell me that, you who knows all.

9. Oh, so your minor is your backup.

Not all art majors have non-art-related minors. However, I didn’t get this Computer Science minor because I want a job specifically related to computer science. If I did, I would have gotten a Computer Science major because, yet again, that’s how college works. Consider that something is my minor because I have a minor interest in it and want to use it to supplement my primary course of study, as is the definition of a minor, and also still how college works.

10. That degree is a lot of money to spend on a coaster.

That opinion is pretty sassy for something that literally does not affect you.

Unless I’m trying to be a doctor or an engineer, no one cares what my degree says, so long as it exists. No one, so you shouldn’t either.

11. Have fun being broke.

Look, you don’t have to be in love with what you do. And perhaps you are in love with something that has a larger cash value in our society. That’s fine. I know what I’m getting into, and I know that depending on how I play my cards I will either have very much or very little money. I don’t think that deep down everyone wants to be an artist, or that all artists have a profound love of craft, but I do.

I think the world needs art and that the world needs artists. So if there is something that can even somewhat brighten a dark corner of one person’s life, I’m fine spending mine trying to figure out what that is and make it.