I walk up to pin my homework on the drawing studio wall. As I fumble with the push pin while my fellow students scramble around me trying to find space for their own work, I notice the sheer amount of push pin holes in this wall. I wonder exactly how many students have put their work up in this room, whether they worked tirelessly all week on the piece or just put it together 45 minutes before class.
I wonder if they’ve felt the same as I do, unsatisfied with this week's work and hoping for better results next time.
I roll my eyes at myself for getting distracted and squeeze my piece in between two amazing drawings from my fellow classmates. I already see flaws I should’ve covered up in my piece. God, I think, the professor’s not going to be happy with me. Everyone else in this class is so great at what they do. I hoped for at least one person to be worse than me this week, but I’ve never felt like more of an amateur in my life.
There is a difference in hating your work or feeling like an amateur as a fine arts major rather than a math or science major. If you mess up an equation or experiment, the answer you wrote is wrong. There is no arguing over it, you just need to try again or get a point off your test.
In an art class, there is no "wrong," but there is "bad," and it is so easy to be bad.
Being told that you are incorrect is very different than having an awkward 20 seconds of “ehhh” while your professor tries to pick out something they can comment on without completely tearing the assignment to shreds. I’ve often said I’m an art major because I can’t do anything else, and while that is a (slight) exaggeration, feeling that your work is unsatisfactory in a creative field makes you feel like, for lack of better term, a total loser.
Even so, I believe that if you are the smartest person in the room, you should leave that room as fast as you can. The last thing I want to be is the best in the class because then I don’t have room to learn. I am in college to get a degree, but I am also here to learn and get better at my craft, and without struggling I would just be bored. Because of that, I am thankful for being upset with myself. I see too many fine arts majors think they are too good for critiques, and I never want to be like that.
