I am currently taking a Performance Art course at Millsaps College, and it has changed my view of the world for the better. Performance art is not acting or a type theatre arts, which is what most people think of when I bring up performance art.

I like to think of performance art as "live art." Performances are considered art just as much as any painting or sculpture in a gallery is considered art. Anything can be art if you simply decide that it is art. That's one of the many beauties of art. My performance art pieces range from me planting a fig tree to me breaking pencils and ripping papers to me brutally piercing my ears in a Millsaps bathroom. The reason why performance art makes everyday more fun is that it has opened my eyes to seeing that anything and everything can be and is art, which is extremely liberating.

I feel more free as a person walking around knowing that anything I do can be art, if I say so. My most recent performance art piece, which has been documented and is currently in the Student Art Exhibition in the Millsaps College Lewis Art Gallery, consisted of me wearing heavy, handmade wooden block earrings that had "GPA" painted on one of them and "Choose a career" painted on the other, while I pierced my ears multiple times and forced two more handmade wooden block earrings that had "Rent" painted on one and "Debt" painted on the other.

(Photo taken by Kristen Tordella-Williams)

I titled this piece "The System Hurts" and it is my favorite because obviously I have already made the decision to be in college, which means I have also already made the decision to be in debt. I love that I was able to express my frustration of the "system" that we must go through in order to be able to thrive in the capitalist society in which we live in a way that shows physical pain.

The stress of having already spent so much money as an investment in myself and my future, while still not knowing what I want to do with my life, is physically exhausting. Performance art is a wonderful outlet with which I have been liberated and feel more comfortable in my own skin and more comfortable with my own ideas and opinions.

If I could give advice to anyone in college right now, it would be to take a performance art class if possible! Allow yourself to be odd and do something weird because it could be important to you or it could be simply fun for you. My view of art and my view of my surroundings has been forever altered because of my performance art class, and I could not be happier.