Artistic Sensibility

In honor of my graduatin’, I’m doing a retrospective of the most memorable things that happened to me in college. (This upcoming story is entirely true, by the way, not exaggerated in the least.)

In my sophomore year, for my art perspective (well-rounding courses that you are required to take to complete your degree), I took Intro to Studio Drawing. I figured it couldn’t be too hard, plus I took three years of art in high school – I should be fine. And it might even be fun. I mean, drawing = fun, right?

Oh, silly naïve Jason.

I hadn’t factored in the fact that I sucked at art in high school. Damn all those grades for completion rather than talent. A false sense of security is no one’s friend, in the school of the arts. Suffice it to say I was pretty bad at drawing. Not horrible (or so I thought), but bad enough that I definitely started to look on drawing class with something resembling dread.

Approximately once every two weeks or so, we would have Critique Day, wherein everyone in class would put up everything they drew from that week in a small gallery. The professor would then come around and (shockingly) critique what we had done and tell us what we should work on for the upcoming week.

I don’t know exactly what I did to the guy, but my professor hated everything I ever drew. With a fiery passion. I mean, yeah I was bad, but this guy was in a whole other league. He seemed to take my lack of talent as a personal affront to both his profession and himself. So these critiques were always a fun ride, for me.

On the night before the third critique, I had something resembling an inspiration and drew, what I thought, was a really good picture – a close up portrait of a guy in deep shadow. For once I was actually excited to put this thing up and hoped that maybe the professor might toss me something resembling a compliment.

The day dawns, I set everything up. Critique begins:

[Jason is standing beside his artwork next to Bob, another student in the class. The professor is just finishing his critique of Bob’s work]

Prof: So all in all, you’ve made a lot of progress. Keep up the good work. [turns to Jason] So what do we have here...

[Professor peers at Jason’s work. He focuses in on the portrait. Jason visibly swells with pride.]

Prof: This piece here is interesting. When did you do it?

Jason: Last night. I was sort of inspired…

Prof: Ah…

Jason [who never learns]: So what do you think of it?

Prof: Hm. Well, let me just say something here. You know, art is a tricky subject. Sometimes in life, things you do say something about yourself. Other times it doesn’t matter. Like if a person is bad at math, people just say ‘Oh well, you’re just bad at math.’ It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. But you know, if you’re bad at art, it’s like saying you don’t have a soul.

[This is the sum total of the professor’s critique. He walks off. Jason stands there shell-shocked. Bob has been listening, comes over.]

Bob: Dude. Did he just say that you don’t have a soul?

Jason: ...Yeah, I think he did.

Bob: Damn man. I’d be a little worried right about now.

And that pretty much sums up the entire class experience. I ended up pulling a B+, after haggling with him up from a C. Since I never missed a single day of class and I never once tried to kill him with a piece of charcoal all semester long, I think I earned every bit of it too.