In the K-12 school district I attended growing up, we had to take art class every year from 1st Grade up until the end of middle school. For me this was quite challenging, more challenging than any other subject, as I was not and still am not the most artistic person. My teachers in elementary and middle school were helpful but quite critical of my work, knowing that it could probably be better despite my lack of natural talent. Things changed once I got to 8th Grade.
8th Grade was my last required year of taking an art class. I had looked forward to it, as I was ready to finally be done with my most difficult and frustrating subject. My class that year was the during the first rotation of art classes, so our teacher, Mrs. Samardzija, had us do a new sculpture project that she had not done with any previous classes: we were to sculpt an entire word that described us and then paint it.
Normal art projects were a struggle for me, so this was an incredible challenge, but I was up for the task. I decided that I was going to put my best effort to match everyone else's on the project. The sculpture took weeks to do, longer than any of us originally expected. I, being a slower worker, had to spend some study hall periods to get closer to finishing it. I even took it home and worked on it past midnight one time in order to finish.
The extra work put in paid off. That sculpture project ended up in the school district's winter art show. In addition to my efforts for said project and others, I ended up getting a flat A for the class, extremely rare for someone of my art ability, as most would get an A-. I was extremely happy with my efforts in what I thought was my final time taking art.
During the early stages of applying to colleges for urban and regional planning, I found out that I would need to send in a portfolio of drawings and projects to Ball State to apply for their College of Architecture and Planning. This meant I would have to take a high school art class. Even with my success in 8th Grade, I knew this would be tough once again.
Like before, my 11th Grade art class was difficult, tedious, and time consuming. I had to work much more than my average classmate to do a solid job. This meant staying after school a couple times and even missing the beginning of track practice to work on projects. In the end, all of this resulted in another great grade and many solid finished works of art for my own standards.
Looking back on those art classes, I can say with 100% certainty that I gained the most fulfillment from the challenges I was able to overcome and exceed my own expectations. While art has never and will never be something that comes easy to me, my last two experiences have created great feelings that I will never forget.
