Friday, March 3rd

rants.

Classical @ 05:08 pm CST

so, what can i say.

it's spring break for me here; i'm out of school for the next nine days. that's pretty swell, because i do need the extra sleep and some time to do absolutely nothing at all. and maybe do some art-related stuff. i think i'm going to attempt to actually start a comic that i had planned to start over my christmas break and never did, haha.


but it's been incredibly stressful so far. things were left uhh, untied back at school and i have to wait until i go back to fix them. also, when i go back, the end of the quarter will be coming up, so you know what that means! cram cram cram time.

i am also getting bitched at left and right here by my parents for no other apparent reason other than the fact that i am at home for the day.
it's really wearing on my nerves.

i have my sights set on a college already, which is something i feel is pretty reasonable. it's not like i'm trying to get into the best art college out there or trying to do something way out of my abilities. i want to go to MCAD and that's about it.
in order to go there, i have been working hard at keeping my grades while working on portfolio-quality pieces. the last review i got told me that when i fill in the gaps of the portfolio (which are very reasonably attainable for me), i will not only have a good chance of being accepted, but also will have a good shot at the scholarships. not trying to sound high and mighty, but that's what i've been told. but, y'know, just in case, i plan on applying to a few other colleges as well (but they look even harder to get into, so...yeah).
i am planning for tests and deadlines. outside of financial aid, which i will be looking into on my own pretty soon, i would say that i'm pretty much set, right?

apparently not.
my parents--mostly my mother, but that's because she's the only one home--seem to think that i am not ready to make desicions on my own yet, because i am of a mere age of seventeen. nevermind the fact that i am legally an adult in november.

she seems to be getting this stuff from a book and needs to follow the college process step-by-step or something will go wrong. she is insisting that i visit some unreasonable number of colleges (liberal arts colleges, no less) so i have something to "compare."
compare what? i have found the college that fits everything i want in a college. strong traditional arts roots, urban location that i am also familiar with, small size, very good shot at financial aid even though it's a bit expensive. it's everything i want, but my mother seems to be insisting that there's more somewhere else. at liberal arts colleges, as well. she thinks that, for whatever reason, art colleges don't have the best programs for visual arts students, so she wants me to look elsewhere.

so, umm... yeah, the logic of this argument is abandoning me. liberal arts colleges are for liberal arts majors. art colleges are for art majors. just because they both have "art" in the name doesn't mean that they are the same thing. i wonder if she'd be freaking out in the same way if i told her i wanted to go to a technical school for a technical degree in whatever.
i've done the research. what's also pissing me off is that she thinks i haven't done any work on this. very much wrong. i have been looking into the required repetore for the liberal arts majors for art. a large chunk of the credits are liberal arts--i.e. math, science, and other various shit i will never use--and less than a third of the credits are even related to my major. the university of minnesota requires that i take only 28 credits worth of art classes, while the rest of them are liberal arts. MCAD's illustration major requires that i take at least 80 studio and art-based credits, with the rest of them being specialized liberal arts credits. i am not shelling out thousands of dollars to not only take classes on things i learned in high school, but also on things i have little use for in the future.
it's such a joke. getting a "general" or "studio arts" major at one of these schools would be totally screwing myself over about five hundred times. careers require specialization these days and the classes that i have to take for these colleges are very general, just as the major suggests: drawing and ceramics classes and the like. what i need is a focus on the line of work i want to be doing--most likely illustration--and i can't get that with these general art classes. i have looked for the type of classes art colleges offer in the liberal arts colleges and i can't find them. liberal arts colleges specialize in liberal arts studies, not the visual arts.
fuck, even some don't have art majors. i know that, locally, st. thomas doesn't have one, along with several other big-name four-year colleges.

these liberal arts colleges are for people who want science or other acaedemic careers, and while that's great for them, it's not the right choice for me.
furthermore, just because you went to one doesn't mean that it's the right choice for me, either. just because we're related doesn't mean we have the same interests and hopes for the future.

something's telling me that my parents are somehow feeling "cheated" because i'm not allowing them the "full" college experience with all the visits and exploration and whatever. what really disgusted me yesterday is that they said "my" college choice was actually "our" college choice, merely because they were paying for it.
well, i never asked for your help, anyway.

your college years were twenty-five years ago. this choice is mine and mine alone. if you're not gonna support me, i will do it myself.

what's really been the final straw is the fact that i took it upon myself to sign up for the ACT test in june. i figured i was doing a good thing here, getting a test done, so it would be one less thing to get nagged about.
and then my mother EXPLODES all over me for it. first it was the fact that she has to pay for it now rather than some other time, and then it was the fact that i was somehow taking the "wrong" test. for some goddamn reason, she is convinced that the test all colleges want to see is the SAT, when most colleges in this area generally want to see the ACT. i actually plan on taking both, but the deans at school have told me that if i plan on staying somewhat local, then i should be taking the ACT first, because only schools on the coast prefer the SAT over the ACT.

it's just...christ, man! everything i do is just not good enough.
i'm so sick of this shit. i'm tired of being treated like i don't know what i'm doing. i'm tried of being scolded like a child for actually doing the right thing here. the more i get bitched at about college and my future or whatever, the more i want nothing to do with it.

in the end, the lapse between each of my mother's responses to what i had to say in return to her about that damn ACT test were a bit more reassuring. i think it may just be starting to sink in that i am more intelligent and resourceful on this college stuff than she knows.
but i'll knock on wood and hope i didn't just jinx myself by saying that.

replies: 3 have green thumbs

Sun 03/05/06
I said:

damn. I'm pissed off too. have you tried hitting the parents in the head with a large and heavy piece of wood? I wish I knew personally the object of my disdain.
Some bitch insulting a gift I made for SOMEONE ELSE! She just thought she would show her superiority by pointing out that what I did for klar wasn't fanart and therefore unapreciable. I told her that was the creative attitude I would expect from somebody who drew solely anime, she flew off the handle. Whined about insulting an entire country's art style, proving my exact point in the process. She is pigheaded enough to believe that you can take SOMEONE ELSE'S style, call it your own and somehow pass it off as creative. You are half of the other schmuks on deviantart my friend. Anime is a sad excuse for not taking the time to develop your own unique style, it is easily replicated by swapping out a series of shiny eyes and colorful hair. I do appreciate anime, the same way I appreciate watching a sitcom; it is amusing even if the quality of acting is poor. I don't rag on the style itself, it was probably very innovative at the time it was created, kudos to the guy who started that snowball rolling. I turn up my nose at the people who persist in copying the style and present it as their own. If I took the entire body of anime based work on deviantart and mixed it up, I would have no idea in hell as to which piece belonged to which artist. No matter what sasshamya claims about my style being american comic or photorealism, my style is recognizable in a pool or work by other artists and for that reason has been sought out for actual commercial reasons. I think it is sad that while sasshamya has gone through an art college and gained nothing but the vacant, homogenous style of anime I have not been working intensively for more than a year in between high school and have created something original. Sorry babes, the truth hurts, there is no market for anime, that is why art college admissions frown upon entries of the type. And you know, when I called her a pompous ass I fully knew what I was talking about because it was snobbery and the fact that she thought knew personally the wishes of popular artist of DA that led her to criticize my gift based on petty terminology. Personally, I do not think much of the kind of hero worship that goes on on DA. That paired with the minimal amount of original work given recognition on that site lead me to believe I would be better off spending my efforts elsewhere. I would expect clique-like power plays to happen in a schoolyard, not on a supposedly equal-opportunity website. Is DA just a glorified forum? I have been on the site for two years now and not once have recieved any kind of constructive criticism, nor do I see many others recieving it. I just see flocks of proliterians centering around a few big names leaving pages of comments like "omg azu its just like so qte! ^_^ : ) :D lololol." Klar hasn't responded to me yet and I don't really care because how can I expect her to write me a message from on the top of that pedestal everybody places her on? So why should I take the sparse time of my day to scan and write meaningless comments on my life that noone will read, no one give a shit about when I could be using the time to be creative and actually start something. I'm glad I made the mistake of trying to show that I respected someone's style through my own art. It gives me perspective on how value is place on creative merit and how much on icons. With this being said I deliver a mighty FUCK YOU to deviantart and proceed to torch the bridge and never look back. I don't think I will stay. OK, my rant is done. Sorry courtney I had to do it somewhere, and I just did all over your blog.

Sun 03/05/06
[@] [www] Classical said:

wait, wait... i have to go see this... -peeks-

hey, wait, you took it down. D: i guess i can't say much there, because i don't have the original comment to work off of. my feelings on this depend exactly what words were exchanged.

BUT, from what i'm picking up on, whether or not the image is actually of someone else's character or not, a gift is a gift. while i think it wouldn't make much sense to draw her umm...a dragon or something and give it to her saying "hey look, for you!" but since you did draw something that we are all sure she likes, it was a reasonable idea.
it looks like she was the one getting partically confused because she was calling it "your character," other than a random character for a drawing. that may have changed things, probably by a lot. i get the big impression that she thought that character was "yours," meaning something you held dear to yourself, and not just some random unicorn.

HOWEVER, taking her style into account was not the right thing to do. that's when it becomes personal. whether or not you are actually right by saying things about her style and relating them to her persona, that was definitely not the response to make. it really turned from "disagreement" to "personal attack" right there.
be careful of your words and stereotypes, dear. that's probably where things got messed up, yes?

now we're straying from the original problem, but yeah... i feel that deviantART has become more for exposure rather than a community of helpful artists. which is sad, but that's how it goes. it gives me a place to dump all of my art, anyway, and then be selective about the stuff i post on my own personal website. so, in the end, everything gets looked at eventually.

but, hey, i totally know how it goes. the world of pageviews and comments is tempting, but we both know it is shallow and just...stupid to only appeal to the masses by drawing in a "fad" style and drawing what people want to see. i've been struggling with this for a really long time, doubting my worth as an artist, because pageviews and comments are incredibly hard for me to come by, and when they do, they come from friends.

however, at deviantART, while there is a wide variety of artistic types and ages, a huge chunk of the active portion is teenagers and young adults. and y'know what they like to see? anime. fad art. things the audience member personally likes, like television shows, movie, book, music, whatever. some will appreciate originality more than others, but a majority will never fail to flock to the latest upload of shiny inuyasha/harry potter/whatever piece of fanart.

i'm still coming to terms with this reality and accepting it. i'm never going to say that i'm "better" than the rest of them because i don't draw anime-influenced art or whatever. never, never, never. whether or not i like a style is a different matter, but i will always respect an artist for what they do, even if i feel they are putting their talents to the wrong use.
but i refuse to let my audience completely pull me in either diretion, simply because i'm hungry for pageviews, comments, or other various forms of patting my ego. it leaves me weak, but i find my ways of help and critique through the network of friends i've built up in other places.

in the end, don't let just one among the deviantART population get you down. there are people with a lot of the community behind them, and some of them will use that for their own good, thinking that they have "power" in places they really don't.

it took a lot of asshattery to get me annoyed with that site, and that was built up over time. so just give it some more time to sort things out.

hasn't every famous artist in history gone trhough this kind of struggle with the audience, anyway? :)

Sun 03/05/06
I said:

mmmmmmmph :P well. I do think it is a waste of my time to try to connect myself to the faceless deviantart community. I can not relate to people through text over the internet, I feel kind of cheap when I try. Ya, it was a personal attack, I could not help myself, I was weak. But you know I do not do that frivilously. Sometimes I wish I could penetrate the thick outer layer of people but an entire unhappy childhood social life should have taught me to nod and keep my thoughts to myself. Because when it really comes down to it, being liked is always a bigger priority than publically being right in my little world. I wash my hands of this.