Breakthrough

The thing I love best about design and marketing so far is the amount of immediate freedom I have in it. I don't have to wait around for someone else to decide if I can be involved or not like I would in theatre. I don't have to already know a bunch of rules and regulations if I want to create something like I would with set design or follow another person's idea of what the art should be, and find out a way to fit everything that's going on in my head into their vision.
I'm not losing the collaboration, either- that will develop later once I've discovered who I am and what I can do as an artist, which is what I really wanted to learn in college anyway. Stephens has always provided itself to me as a safe place to take risks, but I'm finally at a place where I'm able to really take advantage of that. There's no more waiting, and it's all up to me.

   And another thing? I can't tell you how liberating it is to not be constantly wondering if I'm good enough, if my personality is up to scratch, if what I do matters, or if I'll ever get a job like I used to, and like 98% of my theatre friends still deal with. It's not a bad thing to be selfish and concentrate to developing myself anymore, in fact it's encouraged.

These are a few of the sketches from our very first assignment.

 
That sort of happened to me yesterday during my Typography class. Earlier in the day, during Principles of Design, I spoke with my teacher Kate about several of my designs. We talked about my gravitation towards texture and depth in design, and whole bunch of other jargon-heavy concepts that were appearing in my art. Later, during Typography, I had to quickly sketch a few concepts for a poster, and it took Kate all of five seconds to decide which concept I should run with. "It's you! You have to develop this idea because when I saw it, I knew it was you doing that. That's you're thing."
   Maybe that doesn't mean anything to a lot of you, but basically I had a breakthrough yesterday. a mini milestone. Kate, my audience, recognized something I did as my work, she noticed and identified my style. That means I have a style! Or, at least, the beginning of one. One of the biggest goals of my year is to pinpoint and discover my style as an artist, to settle in to my particular aesthetic, and yesterday it happened. It was minor, but so important.

This is the poster I did yesterday, the poster that's "my thing". This is my G.

I got really excited. I've felt so great ever since, and I'm so happy to have that inkling of confirmation that I'm on a good path, one that fits me that I can really settle into and do exceptional work in. It's so priceless, it's such the ideal "college dsicovery" thing.

   

Have any of you had moments like this? I want to know your experiences! Leave me a comment,
I want to know I'm not alone on this one.

As always,
love, rudi

P.S. I'm going to start playing around with the way I do things around here. Any input, positive or negative, is completely appreciated!