Takeaway crayons for thesis install

Thesis install starts next week!! This is it, the home stretch. It all seems like my time here at Columbia College Chicago has just flown by. I can’t believe how much my practice has changed over the last three years. As I’m finishing up projects to install in the space, I’m suddenly aware of all of those changes.

When I first started the Interdisciplinary Book & Paper Arts, MFA program, I had a very different idea of where I was going. I had just wrapped up getting my BFA in Drawing at Northern Illinois University. In my last year at NIU, I had started incorporating hand papermaking and book binding into my practice. I had these notions that I would continue that line of inquiry and make a bunch of books that further developed a narrative that I had been working on through my undergraduate track. And I did for my first year, but soon I started down a completely different path that is going to end with a video installation. Never in my wildest imagination did I think that I would be spending my last few weeks in college sitting at a screen editing video, let alone one featuring a couple of my heroes. In short, I am shocked and incredibly excited about where I am at artistically.

I guess that is the biggest advantage to graduate education. Had I not chosen to come to Columbia, I would have a much more limited practice. I’d still be making drawings. I would still be in love with the medium, which I still absolutely am, but I would never have gotten to where I am now, a place where I felt empowered enough to reach out to one of the surviving Ramones and ask him to be in my project. I would not have been in a place to have been able to meet one of my favorite artists and unofficial fourth member of Alkaline Trio, Heather Gabel, and then get her to participate in my project. I would not have realized that I have a passion for the zine community without having been introduced to Chicago Zine Fest through being here. Honestly, right now, I am on top of the world, and I have to give a lot of that credit to Columbia College Chicago and the Interdisicplinary Arts department.

It hasn’t all been sunshine and roses, though. It’s been a challenge right up until the end. Managing a family life with two small children and a partner who is also struggling through graduate school while also trying to succeed in school myself is one of the hardest, and craziest, things that I have ever done. Childcare is not offered by Columbia, and it’s not cheap. It’s also really hard to make faculty understand that you are completely committed to a program even if you cannot attend every opening and visiting lecture because you have a family and that you’re involvement in school is also a huge sacrifice to your family. These are hard things to deal with, but I knew entering into this program that I would have to make sacrifices in order to succeed. And I am glad that I did.

See you all on May 14th!!