I remember when choosing your GCSE's was one of the hardest choices you had to make back when you were fourteen/fifteen. It was the start of deciding who you wanted to be. Someone had got this stick out and started poking you with it, pushing you to choose this subject or that subject and you just didn't know.
The decision wasn't too hard for me, I suppose. I love Art so that was definitely a 'Yes'. I also picked Geography and French. It was important to for me to have a language in there as we had been told that would look good on our CV's (Resumes).
However it is Art as an academic subject that I want to talk about.
If you are an Art lover, you probably spent many hours after school or on sunny and rainy days just drawing away. You invented imaginary people, gave me them a name, age and place of birth and signed your work with your full name and how old you were at that exact time, even that 7 and 3/4's business. Well I certainly did. Art is supposed to be limitless in how one expresses themselves and it's not just about drawings, it can be singing, photography or any creative subject. You will know that you're that kind of person and what you enjoy.
Up to GSCE level of Art, I had expressed myself so freely and reached a stage of, say drawing people that ended up in a kind of cartoon-like form throwing out any sense of proportion and shadows and shading. You could say I still wanted to belong in that cartoon world and I took Art in a fun way rather than serious. So drawing people wasn't for me but that's ok. It was when I got to choosing my topic for my Art exam. The duration was ten hours and we had to create a sketchbook and plan out beforehand. The topic was I, Me, Mine. You could say that the most limitless topic was right ahead and I got to thinking straight away. I had been working my way up the GSCE Art ladder with B's and due to get my first A. I was so sure and so confident about this.
As a nostalgic person, blossoming a new passion for photography, I created a pin board, a real tangable one that I was firstly going to paint on canvas but wanted the texture and photographs painted by hand. I hadn't painted enough, which was my outcome, leaving me with a C. It was Art, I was proud of it and it didn't meet the criteria.
The mould had begun.
My further education at college was quite limitless and experimental, particularly my Independent Project taking a photographic form on Teenage Stereotypes and the fact that barriers are often too high.
I moved closer to the photography dream and now in my second year of university, that mould of getting us to be a certain kind of photographer and use certain tools with certain expectations has been, well thrown upon us. I'm liking the fact of using old cameras, the real kind that people used when photography began, but growing up in a digital age, it's hard for me to flip back.
I'm not naturally technical, I'm shy on first meeting and here are teachers saying to the class of many others like me that "Being a photographer you have to be a people person." forcing it upon us like we didn't know or that wasn't us, that and crushing our dreams. Many of us are good with people, we don't have to be gregarious. But that's the mould they want us in, as if we couldn't be successful any other way.
I may be struggling with the pace of this river, but I work slowly to achieve the best results and to really learn and my communication is gentle and directive. But just because us 'quiet lot' with softer voices doesn't necessarily mean that is us inside. I know for a fact that isn't who I would describe myself. With building confidence slowly, that "people person" is going to come out of all of us, because it's there. We fell in love with Photography and Art for the expression and wanting to make something beautiful out of some instant. We probably didn't consider that we should have all these millions of business skills. Some may do, but there work could be lacking in what is Art. We're not all perfect.
What happened to Art being limitless, the world being limitless? Or was that part of life that defined us as children and now we have to face the professional world seeking success in a grey suit, striving for a Face that isn't really us?
When choosing your career? Make it natural, make yourself natural with the natural confidence and aura that just makes your clients/colleagues know that you are genuine in what you want to achieve. You might actually stand out that way.
It's ok to be that boulder in the stream. It's ok to stand still for a moment, resist the stereotype needs and do whatever you want to do and express that you want to express. Once that education is out the way, those gates can be opened if you let them.
Be limitless. Be You. Be Free.
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